<p>Ok so today the common app for the school I really want to go to came out and I decided I wanted to try to write a rough draft of my essay. I basically wanted to write about the life experiences I have had and how I have overcome many problems I have encountered in life. I have never really told anyone my story and how growing up the way I did affected me. I honestly tried to write this essay and started crying. I don't want the essay to be sad or generic. I really want my essay to stand out. Any tips? I hoping the essay portion of my application helps me since my SAT score isn't that great.</p>
<p>Try to write from your inner strength, lesson learned, how it should affect others.</p>
<p>Thank you for your advice @"aunt bea" </p>
<p>There’s an essay forum on CC you’d probably find useful. Or a Google search for “how to write a good college essay” will give you thousands of sites and suggestions. It would appear that the most common advice when dealing with essays about overcoming challenges is to not let the challenge be the whole essay - it should be less than half, and the other part should talk about what you learned from the challenges and how they helped you grow as a person.</p>
<p>Keep writing. Don’t try to get to a finished form at this point. Through the writing, you will learn what it is you wish to say. </p>
<p>Keep writing. Then, put it aside for a few days and revisit with a fresh perspective. Make revisions and then repeat. You can do this.</p>
<p>I agree with what @mnm111 said. If you’re going to write about something sensitive for you, you need to look at it through many perspectives. A Yale admissions officer once told me that writing about the struggles you’ve overcome can be a great topic if written correctly. She said that writing about very difficult things you’ve dealt with can be very insightful about you to the admissions office. However, she said the rule she thinks students should use to determine if a subject is too sensitive is if they tear up while writing the essay. I’ve seen a few other admissions officers say similar things: if you tear up while writing on an emotionally sensitive topic, you’re probably too emotional involved in the topic to write an essay that does what it’s meant to do. The Yale admissions officer told me that if you tear up writing on a topic, the essay will usually either turn out sounding like it was therapy for the student to talk about all of their emotions or it will lack the perspective and reflection colleges like to see. Any topic can work if you write about it well, and you might be able to make the topic work, but you definitely need to look at it through multiple lenses and look at your topic through multiple lenses so that your essay is well-developed and reflective and doesn’t sound like some sort of catharsis that doesn’t have good perspective. </p>
<p>You DO NOT want to use a story that you’ve never told anyone in your common app. Colleges generally find it immature that you would tell complete strangers something that you wouldn’t tell your own family. But, if you are insistent on using your topic, please, do not let colleges know that they are the first person you are telling.</p>
<p>I would agree that this may not be the best topic for you. Remember that admissions counselors are looking for reasons to want you on their campus. They want to see something unique and interesting about you in the essay. Writing the essay should not take the place of a good therapy session… Often it is better to ask your guidance counselor to communicate any issues that colleges might want to take into consideration when considering your application (health issues that made your grades go down, family issues that made it hard for you to participate in ECs or even focus on academics, etc.). Often students starting their essay get something like this topic in their heads,and can’t see any other path for their essay. </p>
<p>This is what I could call a ‘forest’ essay, too. You are trying to explain your life – but this is really hard to do in what is essentially a page or two. You don’t have room for much more than generalities, and you can’t “show” – you really can only tell (not give specific examples with enough details for the ad com to see YOU vs. the situation). It is better to pick a ‘tree’. You want an interesting tree – something you do or that is special about you that makes you different from most other graduates you know. It is so much easier to “show” (vs. tell) the admissions office what you are like if you are thinking about a specific activity, or examples of a specific unusual thing about yourself. Examples: One of my kids wrote about how she has tried to imitate a specific literary character since she was 8 years old, and how that has gone for her (good and bad) over the years. Another wrote about her favorite EC and how it made her look at the world differently (via examples of things that happened with it). </p>
<p>I think for a variety of reasons you should rethink your topic, and also consider if you want to share any info with your HS guidance counselor that you would like them to put in the GC recommendation.</p>
<p>I am not an adcom, but I do a lot of hiring, and I think there are a lot of similarities between them. If an applicant were to tell me that his wife is chronically ill with 5 children, so he had to care for his wife and juggled a lot of housework, I maybe very sympathetic, but I may also wonder if he is going to be able to put in 100% for his work. On the other hand, if he were to tell me about a project he was working on perked his interest on learning a new technology, I may think this applicant is proactive, curious, love of learning, able to face new challenges…all of positive things you want in an employee.</p>
<p>Think about what a college wants in its students? List all of them, then try to write an essay to try to convince them why you would be a good candidate. You don’t want them to admit because they feel sorry for you.</p>
<p>My daughter wrote about her 2 years experience living in a new country. She contrasted differences between US and the new country. She talked about her adjustments and how much she enjoyed her experience. It could have been one of those “I over came my adversity” essays, but instead she showed adcoms that she was , 1) able to adapt to new environment, 2) love new culture/experience, 3) going to bring a different dimension to the campus.</p>
<p>Her essay was well written in that it was well organized, funny, easy read, and a lot of her personality came through it. </p>
<p>I’ve helped students with essays about personal tragedies and secrets (mother’s death, being gay, and being an undocumented immigrant, for example). I know at least one of them got a full scholarship to a program he really likes. Writing a very personal essay on a very private and emotional topic can be successful. Having been an application essay reader/scorer (for scholarships, not admissions per se), I would say that so many essays are alike that anything that stands out from the crowd will likely give you at least a small advantage.</p>
I find I do my best writing when I am crying. I guess it’s because in that moment of vulnerability when the tears are flowing freely, the words do too. I’m thinking they will probably never know you cried while writing it so go for it! I hope I get to read it sometime. And I hope I cry when I do.
My kid wrote her essay about something very personal to her, but the focus was all on how she tried to overcome the issue. There was a tiny bit of potential tear jerking at the very end, but only in that she finished by showing a result of her struggle. It was not sappy or maudlin. She was admitted to 9 of the 12 colleges she applied to. So yes, these types of essays can be very effective, but be sure the emphasis is on how you grew as a person by tackling an issue. You want them to know what kind of person you are and have them think “I like this kid.”