Over the summer I wrote two common app essays. I wrote one about my experience at Girls Who Code. and another one about my decision to transition from relaxed to natural hair. I feel like my first essay seemed to cliche and pretentious because summer program essays are pretty common. In the essay I talked about how I became more outgoing, and how me and a group of girls I didn’t talk to worked together to code a website and present it to a crowd at graduation. However this experience was’t really meaningful to me. My second essay is more meaningful to me but it is a pretty unusual topic, I talked about transitioning from relaxed to natural hair and what the journey taught me. Which essay should I send to colleges?
I think you should probably ask someone who has read both essays, an English teacher or guidance counselor perhaps? It is tough to judge not having read them. My instincts say that the “summer program” essay is indeed going to be common and overdone, but writing an entire essay about your hair, if not done well, could hint at being superficial. Again, I may be wrong, not having read either one. But you must understand that colleges are looking to see what you can contribute to the campus community. Girls Who Code indicates participation in an area of interest that you might continue in college. What will changing your hairstyle do for the college community?
Now an essay combining both could be humorous, lightly irreverant and entertaining.
I agree with the pervious poster.
With that being said I actually find “girls who code” to be rather interesting. I don’t know any girls who code and to me, it says a lot about the young women involved.
The hair topic turns me off completely. I’m not into any “girl stuff” (maybe why the coding interest me) so my immediate thought is, ‘I don’t care about your hair.’ With that being said, I think I know where you are going with the topic and there would probably be certain schools who might embrace that essay.
Good luck!
Which one your gut feeling tells you to send? To me, it sounds like it is the second one. I bet your activity section of your CA indicated your girls who code activity, with some brief description. I think the “hair” one could work if it is written well. So, ask your parents/teachers to comment and help, but trust your own instinct too.
Good luck!
If the essay about transitioning from relaxed to natural hair also reflects on embracing aspects of your racial and/or ethnic identity and unlearning the beauty standard which says straight hair is better, I think that topic has plenty of promise.
Some young women on my campus organized a natural hair conference on campus. It got a fair number of sponsorships! They were black beauty activists. One of the young women also ran a vlog on this subject, if I recall correctly.
I like the second topic. And fwiw, my kid wrote about her hair and had a lot of great offers. It’s all about what you reveal about your personality.