Hey folks. Daughter and I are struggling over whether it would be inappropriate to write an application essay on the impact a school shooting had on her. My daughter goes to a different school, but has friends where the shooting occurred. One friend was texting her throughout the ordeal while huddled in a closet. Another was a victim. On a certain level, it seems selfish and wrong to use this girls’s memory to try to get into college, but the event had a deep impact on my daughter, leading her to be more politically aware and active. So the essay would be more about the effect on her than rehashing what happened that day, but we aren’t sure whether the overarching topic would be taboo.
Hi OP, does the application essay have to be a specific topic that this story fulfills? If so, I personally don’t see anything wrong with it. It affected your daughter greatly, so I feel that it’s appropriate.
Maybe sit down with her and talk about her essay options. Is there anything else she could write about? Have her make a list of things she could write about and then decide.
Thanks for the input! There are other things she could write about, which is where some of the hesitation comes from. We’ll continue to think about how to do it so it doesn’t come off as using her friendships and their terrible ordeal for selfish ends.
Google “Hacking the College Essay 2017” and read it.
Write the Essay No One Else Could Write
“It boils down to this: the essay that gets you in is the essay that no other applicant could write.
Is this a trick? The rest of this guide gives you the best strategies to accomplish this single
most important thing: write the essay no one else could write.
If someone reading your essay gets the feeling some other applicant could have written it,
then you’re in trouble.
Why is this so important? Because most essays sound like they could have been written by
anyone. Remember that most essays fail to do what they should: replace numbers (SAT/GPA) with the real you.
Put yourself in the shoes of an admissions officer. She’s got limited time and a stack of
applications. Each application is mostly numbers and other stuff that looks the same. Then she picks
up your essay. Sixty seconds later, what is her impression of you? Will she know something specifically
about you? Or will you still be indistinguishable from the hundreds of other applicants she has been
reading about?”
So can you write about this topic in a unique way without sounding like any random HS student?
This is how the college gets to know you as a person. It also has to be more about the writer than other people.
A college “expert” I’ve talked to told me about a girl he knew who used a school shooting (at their own school, I think) for their essay. He used it as an example of an awful essay. The problem with these kinds of things is that the event itself dominates the essay, when it’s supposed to be about you. By the time you’re done saying how awful this event was and how traumatized your friend was, will there still be enough words left for you to talk about, well, you?
Unless you can figure out how to write about a friend’s experience in a way that is completely focused around you, I would avoid this topic.
Yes, you’re right, of course. The key is to use it as a starting point to launch into a description of your own development as a person, and not dwell on the event itself: how it inspired you to do ___, as well as how you think it will impact your future. It has to be part of a larger tapestry that you want to present about you. But clearly it has to be done respectfully, so you don’t come off as trying to piggyback your college dreams onto a horrible experience that your friends had. Finding the right tone is vital.