I keep seeing posts on various sites about how the essays that got accepted were the ones that were about the most random things. Barbies, tomatoes, cilantro, origami, toast-cat equilibrium (don’t even ask…)
And now I’m under the impression that if my essay is anything serious or about academics, it would suck.
There is no right or wrong answer. The essay is your chance to tell your story, to show your writing skills and to give admission officers a glimpse at something that is not evident on the application. If for you the best topic is something academic/serious then go for it.
I agree with happy1. The goal of the essay is for the reader to think “I like this person and I want this person to attend this college.” So if you can manage that whether you write about tomatoes, or the time you scored the winning goal, then you have done your job.
Having said that, the essay about tomatoes is possibly going to catch the eye of the reader more than the essay about the winning goal. Writing about the winning goal has been done a million times. So has the service trip to an underpriviliged community to build houses, a family tragedy, your arrival in a new country and how you assimilated, your coming out story, what you learned by volunteering at a home for senior citizens, and many other worthy and heartfelt topics. I am not knocking those things, because they are just as valid as tomatoes and they are undoubtedly more meaningful. However, those essays are very common. Your essay first and foremost needs to reflect who you are. The college wants to admit a person, not just their tearful story. Oftentimes, creating an essay about the kind of person you are can be best achieved by focussing on something small.
Bear in mind that the officer is reading hundreds of essays, and often those essays have similar themes and topics. Illustrating who you are by using an offbeat topic might enable an AO to remember you. It’s the students who are remembered that get accepted. Writing about a serious topic doesn’t mean your essay will suck. It’s all about what you do with the words you write.
Think about the average admissions officer. Think about them getting ready to read an essay. Guess, just guess, at how many of X, or Y, or Z essays they read? Now suppose they read an “A$:-{bC” essay. Stands out, doesn’t it? You see how this has nothing to do with actual content? Being different can help. And guess who’s different from other applicants? You. You have something special and different inside you. It can be hard to find. It can make you nervous to write about it.
Think about this a different way. When you read a book, or watch a TV show or movie, there really are no new or different stories out there. There’s only different ways of telling them. That different way is what’s ‘new’, even if it’s a story about X, or Y, or Z (or the hero’s journey per Joseph Campbell).
It’s not about writing an essay about a tomato just to be different. That’s unlikely to be effective. There’s a reason why a good college essay can take lots of time and effort to craft. The real you, the real information you may want to convey may be the boring old X, or Y, or Z. That’s fine, perhaps even expected. But you can find a new way to make that point, whether or not you stuff it into a tomato.
I really like what @Lindagaf said: The goal of the essay is for the reader to think “I like this person and I want this person to attend this college.” Absolutely. The two best essays I have read this year were very different, but they each hit that mark. Whether they will strike an admissions reader the same way I do not know, but I was charmed by the writing as well as the content.
Writing a serious or conventional essay is just fine as long as you are able to inject some of your personality into the topic. Finding a clever or funny way to show who you are definitely makes you more memorable. One of my kids wrote a very serious CA essay about classical music but also included a reference to a current rap song which showed a more complete picture of their interests (and a sense of humor). Plus they also included an anecdote about an unconventional time and place they listened to music and how that effected them emotionally. He took a very serious essay with scholarly content to show not only was he a great student but also an interesting person.