<p>I wrote my Bowdoin supplement about what a hard childhood and had and how I overcame it and now want to major in Psychology to use my experiences to help others. I addressed the topic by saying that my academic journey at Bowdoin will help me do this.</p>
<p>Do you guys think that this strays too far from the prompt or is it ok?</p>
<p>It will definitely have the diversity factor at least.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>*what a hard childhood I had, not AND had
sorry</p>
<p>Islam is a great topic to write about</p>
<p>i wouldn't give more than a hundred words to your childhood. This is the essay where they really want you to tell them how much you love them. They dont want people who just picked a name out of a hate and applied there. They want you to have done research and to have chosen them for a specific reason. That is what you should talk about in the essay.</p>
<p>while I do agree with Tzar09, I have to admit my essay was ragingly off-topic. I did talk about my academic interests, but I don't think I mentioned Bowdoin. But this probably isn't helping. I think you should do exactly what Tzar09 told you with the little about childhood, but talk about how that relates to Bowdoin.</p>
<p>I took a very general approach to this essay. I wrote about the education as a whole...and how the system that Bowdoin has created would be beneficial for me to explore and seek out opportunities. I called it my "academic adventure" and made a point to say how that is different than just a journey. I said that i had an end goal of becoming someone who can create connections between different courses of study and not just study specific topics in isolation. and that I wanted to really mix it up and have a very eclectic course of study. And i also talked about how what aspects I would bring the school. and how I could help and add to other students experiences.</p>
<p>My commonapp essay was about a story about Flyfishing... :)
just keep it fresh, not cheesy.
don't say " I overcame this mountain of a challenge and that's why I'm so awesome now, and you should let me in even though all the other kids are saying the same thing but still I'm awesome :)"</p>
<p>I think subtle humor, and metaphors work well in general.</p>
<p>Thanks! You guys are all very helpful. This is a very difficult essay to approach. I didn't want to do something general or talk about why I liked the school, but I think now I will add some more about what I will add to the school and more academic stuff.
I have written like 5 different essays for this supplement already and I'm going crazy revising and I just don't know what to submit!</p>
<p>Obviously you've put a lot of effort into the writing process so I'm sure your essay will reflect that. Try showing the different versions to teachers, parents, friends, etc. so you can get an outside opinion. I actually just started the supplement tonight because there's a huge snowstorm that's 1, trapped me in my house and 2, reminded me of an interesting story that I could use as sort of an extended metaphor for what I want to get out of Bowdoin. Sometimes you just have to wait for an idea to hit you (not to be mistaken for an excuse to procrastinate). :)</p>