<p>Every single essay. EVERY. essay (and that's about around 50+ essays I've read) that worked for some top school (ivy) is about leadership/community service/ how they helped some people in need in some other part of the world and that changed them forever. </p>
<p>So I have worked with children, done volunteer service, etc,
and I'm not writing my essay on service and the like. </p>
<p>It's more on my personal growth, but my personal growth doesn't involve someone dying or my parents divorcing.
And it also doesn't involve me obtaining some high up leadership position.</p>
<p>So, will ivy and selective colleges view my essay as shallow, unaware of the community, undedicated to serving people, and not "deep" enough?</p>
<p>They say that the essay should make the adcom feel as if they just had a conversation with you, and now they get to know what you are like, your personality etc. But that statement doesn't seem to be true, I feel like they'd reject me straight out if the essay isn't deep or tragic or inspirational. Because I've already wrote 5 drafts of my current essay and I'm reluctant to start a new one since I'm submitting it in three days.</p>
<p>Qualifier: I'm not saying that I dislike those topics, in case I sound like it, I'm just wondering if something else is acceptable.</p>
<p>Has anyone here ever gotten into an ivy without a common app essay that is service-oriented, tragic, or about leadship?</p>
<p>Were did you read these essays? The prompts on the CA don’t mention service.<br>
The selective and most selective schools will be looking for what they can glean about you and how that fits what they like and need, the attributes they want in their class. That includes what you choose to write about and the point it makes. Or not. Also remember, “show, not tell.” Why not go see what the colleges themselves say about the essays and about what they value? </p>
<p>ps. I get the impression now that you got those essays from a service you pay for. You don’t know why those packaged Ivy essays worked. If someone gave you a summary of the kid’s accomplishments, you still don’t know. Holistic is more than some summary or one piece. </p>
<p>Goodness, those are the three topics that people usually say to avoid like the plague when applying to really selective schools. If the rest of the application is there to make you seem almost superhuman with grand achievements and academics, the essay is there to bring you back down to earth and remind the ad com that hey, you’re just as human as the rest of us. It’s there to show off your personality, your faults, your failures, the lessons you’ve learned from them, and so on. The ad com wants to get to know you as a person, not relive your trauma when a loved one died or other similar things. Where are you getting these essays from? Everything you posted is completely contrary to everything I’ve researched about college essays for the past few months.</p>
<p>I’d suggest you take a look at Johns Hopkins’ “Essays That Worked”. They’re posted online for everyone to read, and they make for great references. However, you shouldn’t be trying to imitate these essays - write with your own voice. Show off your own style, your own thought process. If you try too hard to be something you’re not, the people reading essays can usually tell.</p>
<p>Just as a qualifier: that doesn’t mean you can’t write outstanding essays about service/some tragedy/leadership/victory/etc. and still wow the admission committees with their writing, but it’s been overused to the point where it’s not unique anymore and you sound almost the same as everyone else writing about the exact same topics. You’d have to approach the topic differently from the other hundreds of kids writing about the same topics to really stand out.</p>
Yes. My son’s essay was none of those things and he was accepted by Princeton. My daughter’s essay didn’t address those topics either, and she was accepted ED by Duke.</p>
<p>I read the essays in a pdf file somewhere on the Internet: 50 Application Essays successful ivy league or something.
Then there’s bits and pieces all around the net to read.</p>
<p>99% of them was about starting some kind of organization, how they loved serving, worked their way up to leadership etc. </p>
<p>And yeah, I’ve read that those topics I mentioned were “plague” topics lol. But I also constantly see that those plague topics work out.</p>
<p>Thank you for the replies! @Constantius Thanks, I’ll look into that.</p>
<p>@CeLcel That’s funny, since I’ve read about 50 essays scattered across the internet as well and I don’t remember reading a single one about such topics. Or perhaps I have read some that talked about leadership/service/etc. but they were just so unmemorable that I don’t even remember reading them in the first place. :P</p>
<p>Look, we don’t want to make you nervous at the last minute, but whatever school(s) you’re applying to now you should be reading their web sites. The way you’re describing these essays seems to miss the point. </p>
<p>Some kids do talk about service and there are good ones (service can form the setting or context.) But its not, “I did this and I did that and look how wonderful am.” Nor is it, I suffered this or that, feel sorry for me and admit me. </p>