Essay Ideas?

College Essays
1

I am working on my common app essay and, until recently, I was set on what I was going to write about. Now I am having some doubts as I see the huge amounts of “dead relative” essays. So here are the two topics I’m considering, please chime in with which you think could be better.

  1. My mother passed away during my freshman year and left my father a single parent with three kids to take care of all by himself. The spin I wanted to put on it was that his actions taught me what it meant to take responsibility and be a man.
  2. I have a passion for working on cars and could write about this. A specific example I could give would be rebuilding the entire front end of my car after an accident.

Thanks for reading guys

2

I’m very sorry for your loss. That must be rough.

I like your spin on it though. The only advice I would offer is tread lightly. You don’t want to make it sound like you are playing the sympathy card to get in.

Your other idea is good, too. I would focus on how you rebuilt the entire thing, how you were determined to complete the whole project. Go Gestalt and run with it.

3

So you’re going with #2?
I just want to get some outside opinions because I’m really 50/50 on it

4

My sympathies as well.

I like your spin on #1. I sent you a PM with some brief ideas.