CommonApp Q's (essay, resume, scores, race)

Applying to College Common and Coalition Application
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I have a lot of questions about the Common App and I'm relatively new to CC. Please help, s'il vous plait! :)</p>

<p>Which essay topic should I pick?</p>

<p>1) Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
My family and I immigrated to the US when I was four years old. Growing up in the US, internal challenges, forming a Vietnamese-American identity, became a citizen a year ago. Of course I'd go into much more detail about my personal thoughts and reflection, but it still seems cliche. I feel that a lot of other people could write the same essay topic, but at the same time, this is an important part of who I am.</p>

<p>2) Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
I was at a Model UN conference in a crisis committee that was FDR's cabinet. I got blamed for something that happened fictionally in the committee and one other delegate lead the whole committee in attacking me for the next two days until the conference ended. I was just a sophomore then and have a guilty conscience so I took the blame, which didn't help me any in awards, in fact the delegate that lead the attack won something. After the conference, I felt horrible and cried, vowing to tell that delegate a piece of my mind if I ever saw him again and considered not ever going to this conference again. I got over it, went to the conference this past year, got an Honorable Mention, and learned to not be a victim and that if I can't stand up for myself then how can I stand up for others in the future. With this one I'm not sure if the lesson I learned was actually a good lesson??</p>

<p>Is there a particular length or format to follow when writing resumes to attach?
There's not enough room for all my recognitions. Should I just list all the stuff in the resume? Or should I also have a brief description of the activity/club in there too? How long can it be?</p>

<p>Is it OK to not self-report AP scores 3 and under? What about IB scores?
For APs, I got two 3s and one 2, rest are 4s and 5s. I got a 6 and a 5 on the IB exams that I've taken. Is the 5 good enough to report?</p>

<p>Does checking off race matter?
If I pick Topic #1 for the essays, it's obvious that I am Asian. Also it requires answering for birthplace and native language then it's self-evident of my ethnicity too. Does it matter if I check off the race box or not?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance! :)</p>

2

<p>I can’t help much for like the later questions, but I can give my opinion for the essay topic. Personally, I think the Model UN topic is a bit weak, although I’m sure you can give examples and go into detail, it’s not really as much of a personal failure… I can understand how it could be and you should totally use it, but try and think back to other failures.</p>

<p>Also, the one thing that many college candidates and college admission officers told me is that they hate seeing the “immigration” story, especially when the person is a child. They want something more recent and more developmental in a high schooler’s life, not something from Pre-K.</p>

3

<p>Hm, I’m in Model UN too so I know how you feel. I think you should expand upon the second essay topic-why was it a failure, how did you feel afterwards, etc, to make it stronger.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for both of your input! :)</p>

<p>@keunglh:
OK, I had a feeling that that topic would be overdone. It seems maybe I need to go back to the drawing board for stronger essay topics.</p>

<p>@DarthFleur:
I never thought about why exactly the MUN story was a failure actually, to me it seemed obvious because I definitely felt like a failure, but now that I think about it, I should reconsider what failure and success mean to me if I choose to do that topic.</p>