<p>okay, so i wrote my common app essay about science fair and how it a) led me to be more interested in science and b) involved the "overcoming obstacles" thing (long story). it's more a metaphor than a literal story about science fair. the essay is well-written and i don't need anyone to read it (it's too late, anyway).</p>
<p>...however, i've been surfing around CC and i keep reading about all these people who do complicated scientific research in labs with professors. the science fair projects at my school aren't stupid or anything, and they involve a lot of work, but you do them at your house and they generally involve taking a scientific approach to everyday things. i've never been alerted to any actual research opportunities and now i'm worried my topic might seem "quaint" compared to other applicants who are working on curing cancer for the projects. will colleges really care about my project or is it the overall message i'm sending that matters?</p>
<p>Your essay isn't about "your project". It's about you. The subject doesn't matter. I know one kid who wrote about his childhood love for frogs; another wrote about a particular song that touched her. </p>
<p>As long as your essay shows something about you as an individual, that isn't necessarily apparent from the rest of your application, it's just fine.</p>
<p>Something important to keep in mind is that it does not matter what you write about, but rather how you write your essay. The most important aspect of a college essay is that you make it personal and offer your reader insight into who you are. For example, you could have two students that volunteered at their local hospital because they both have an interest in medicine. Explaining the motivation behind committing the time and effort into volunteering may be the difference between which essay reads stronger. What you gained from the experience is more important than what you did. I've read poignant essays from students who learned so much about their own interests from volunteering at a hospital because they wrote about what they gained from their experience compared to students who shadowed doctors during births or operations and only offered a superficial response to how amazing that experience was. </p>
<p>It's nice to have experience that looks good on paper, but if your reader doesn't learn anything about you other than you had this awesome experience, then your essay will not read very strongly.</p>
<p>Why would it make you look stupid? If you can look back on this experience and reflect on it, that shows far more maturity and wisdom than someone who participated in a state-wide science fair but hasn't taken anything from that experience. I wrote one of my supplements on grade 8 science class. It'd be nice if you solved cancer, but I'm guessing you'd already put that in your extracurriculars or Additional Information section. The essay is to tell them what matters to you, show something about you, and demonstrate how well you write.</p>