<p>Hey guys, I'm beginning the brainstorming process on my essays for UT! As exciting as it is to finally start and get one step closer to becoming a longhorn officially, I'm starting to get worried. For topic A, an influential person, I'm not sure. Parents and teachers I shouldn't do, I know that. But I'm not sure. Any tips/suggestions? Or what you've seen. Also, is doing a famous or well-known person generally looked as good? Or should I know this person directly. Not sure. I'm thinking about my uncle as of now...but yeah I'm not sure.</p>
<p>I have that same question! I was honestly thinking about writing about my older sister becuase she basically like my second mother and truthfully my biggest role model! It would be really sentimental and well written. But would that be bad to write about her since she’s a family member</p>
<p>IMHO, I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing about a family member. Oftentimes, people think they should write about historical figures and whatnot, but that’s a little cliche. I think as long as it’s heartfelt and genuine, you can’t go wrong. Look at your 17-18 years of life. What person has played the most instrumental role in shaping you into the person you are today? Who has been able to bring out the best in you? Who has had a significant impact on your life? Why? </p>
<p>Write about that person, and you can’t go wrong. :)</p>
<p>I’ll share with you some advice I received concerning this very prompt from a user on another website.</p>
<p>"If you have to compare apples and oranges, don’t tell me about the color of the peel, the different ways you might eat the fruit, what kind of trees they grow on, or the particular benefits of their mutual juices. If you have to compare apples and oranges, give me the relative merits of using either fruit in a food fight. I am immediately interested in that topic and your essay just went on the top of the pile over everyone who talked to me about seed structure.</p>
<p>If you want to write about how your mom inspires you, DO NOT tell me about how kind, loving, sacrificing, pretty, good-smelling, or wise she is. Everyone thinks this about their mother and I am gagging just thinking about the saccharine nonsense that’s about to come at me. If you want to write about your mom, tell me about how you used to hate her guts when she’d pull you out of bed at five in the morning to go jogging and you wanted to bean her in the head…and then transition to how those jogs were the times in which, even if you didn’t know it then, she was opening a chance for you two to really talk about what was going on in your life. Tell me about the ugly orange shoes she insisted on wearing and what the town smells like at five in the morning. Make me hear gym shoes on pavement. Make that scene come alive, make me ACTUALLY be there.</p>
<p>Take a grain of sand and make me smell the ocean. You have to start small…super, super small. Give me one instant, one conversation, one phrase, one raise of an eyebrow. Once you have me grounded in something specific and vivid, THEN you can come in with all the things you want to say about how you felt and what it meant and what it will mean for the future.</p>
<p>Once I can feel the gym shoes on the sidewalk, you can tell me about how you accidentally realized you were going to be a math major while you were jogging with your mom. Once I can accurately predict the merits of throwing an apple over an orange at my enemy’s bowl of cheerios, when I can feel the threat of spaghetti landing all over my shirt, you can start telling me why your adversarial nature makes you a shoe in for business school.</p>
<p>They are going to give you a boring prompt. They do this because it weeds out boring writers. They WANT you to write something that makes them laugh, do a double-take, or re-read what you’ve written. They minute they become bored you lose that round. It might not keep you out of school, but it is not helping your chances. Your job is to take a boring prompt and find a way to make it seem magical, which of course makes you seem magical."</p>
<p>Source: [Exis007</a> comments on Two College App Essays (No due date, but would prefer to turn in August 1)](<a href=“http://www.reddit.com/r/Proofreading/comments/xgf7k/two_college_app_essays_no_due_date_but_would/c5m6vsk]Exis007”>Reddit - Dive into anything)</p>
<p>This advice aided my rewriting process and I wrote an essay I was extremely happy with. Hope it helps!</p>
<p>Thank you so much! That helps so much and has given me so much inspiration :)</p>