<p>I've always been told "college essays need to be personal."</p>
<p>However, I've decided to tackle the prompt "Where is Waldo" in a creative fashion, writing an absurdist take on it, but purely in third person. Will this be fine? Do I need to mention myself?</p>
<p>That’s totally fine - there’s no need to mention yourself in the essay; actually, they suggest you don’t explicitly talk about yourself:</p>
<p>“It’s also important to know that we can learn a lot about you when you’re not talking directly about “you”–if one of our prompts speaks to you in a way that lends naturally to you talking about yourself, that is certainly appropriate, but we’ve also see great essays that have ostensibly no relation to a student or their experiences, but tell us a lot about how that student thinks, and the kinds of things she’s thinking about.” </p>
<p><a href=“https://blogs.uchicago.edu/collegeadmissions/2012/10/essay_tips_tricks_and_treats.html[/url]”>https://blogs.uchicago.edu/collegeadmissions/2012/10/essay_tips_tricks_and_treats.html</a></p>
<p>My essay doesn’t mention myself at all. I just wrote it as I interpreted the question so that my response didn’t seem forced. If you just write it as you perceive it, then the essay will naturally give the admissions officer insight to your own personality and thinking process :)</p>