<p>I've been really struggling to come up with an essay topic that I really feel passionate about, and then I thought about what's been going on in my life lately, which is coming out and dealing with that. I don't want the essay to be a sob story centered around me coming out, but maybe a story about self-acceptance, growth, and being out in a small southern town. I really don't like when people let their sexuality define everything they do, and I don't want the colleges to get the idea that being gay is all I am, so I would probably discuss that along with labels and stereotypes. I would probably use it for my Common App essay which would go to UNC Chapel Hill, my dream school, and UNC Wilmington. Do you think I should go for it, or is it too risky? How can I make it stand out? And do you think Chapel Hill is a liberal school that would be okay with it? Thanks</p>
<p>I don’t see how your sexuality is relevant to college admission.</p>
<p>Coming out can be a good topic or a terrible one, depending on how you handle it. Your plan sounds exactly right. I think you should proceed with it.</p>
<p>This does not mean that every college you might apply to will look favorably on your essay. But if you execute your essay the way you’ve planned it and a college doesn’t like the content, then it’s probably not a college where you could’ve spent four years happily.</p>
<p>Outcoming essays aren’t really unusual, so just writing about how you talked to you parents/friends or what happend at school wouldn’t be something special. I read one good essay where the homosexual part was implemented in a bigger pattern, to prove a point. If you can come up with somethin like this it can (!) be good. But what you are saying in your post (“don’t want the essay to be a sob story” “don’t like when people let their sexuality define everything” “being gay is all I am” etc) it seems that you are not really behind this topic. I would suggest you try to find a topic like unconditionally.</p>
<p>I wanted to work being gay into my essay because it is a significant portion of who I am, but it wouldn’t fit and I just decided to drop it. It’s a good topic to write about, but I wouldn’t force it. It can easily become very contrite.</p>
<p>If I were to define myself, my sexuality wouldn’t be high on the list. Just wondering why it seems to dominate your life so much that you would consider sharing it with a college admission board?</p>
<p>I’m guessing you’ve never been part of any kind of minority group. When you define yourself as part of the majority, it’s no big thing. When you define yourself as outside the majority in some way, it is a big thing–in a way that many straight, white, native-born Protestants do not seem to imagine.</p>
<p>Right, I’m part of the silent majority.</p>
<p>I still don’t think an essay on being gay would be compelling reading for a college admissions officer. Why would just being gay make you a better candidate than someone else? I would be more impressed by accomplishments, creativity, community service, internships and the like.</p>
<p>But what does community service have to do with college, for that matter? Or playing tennis or drawing in charcoal?</p>
<p>Some parts of the application are about an applicant’s qualifications, and some parts of the application are about who the applicant is personally. There’s little inherently interesting about volunteering on a coat drive or being on the tennis team; those things are interesting only if there’s a good story that grows out of them. Same principle applies to an essay about living as an openly gay young person in a small southern town. (Except, maybe less so, because living as an openly gay young person in a small southern town really is more unusual than volunteering on a coat drive or being on the tennis team.)</p>
<p>Can you really not see that? Or are you just unwilling to see that?</p>
<p>Being gay in a small town (I’m not sure what being in the south has to do with anything) is a unique experience that will differentiate him/her from other candidates? Haven’t we all heard these stories before? Not sure what kind of unique spin he can put on it.</p>
<p>I’d rather hear that he built a house for habitat humanity, volunteered with special olympics, organized a food drive or did something that benefited humanity.</p>
<p>What coat-drive-volunteering 17-year-old puts a unique spin on his or her story? Very few of us have life stories that others have not already told. </p>
<p>A unique spin is not necessary. The point is to talk about an experience, and what you’ve learned from it, or how it shaped you.</p>
<p>Well, if it has to be a trite story, I’d rather hear one about how you helped others (I live in WI where having a coat is a good thing) than one about how you learned to love yourself.</p>
<p>Okay, then, no stories about personal growth. Only stories about helping other people.</p>
<p>And yet, I don’t think that’s what the essay prompts on the applications say.</p>
<p>@riporin - that’s not even the point though. The essay is supposed to be about an experience that had an effect on YOU, not on how it has affected others. I’m also assuming you’ve never been in a small town in the south if you don’t know how much harder it is for people of the LGBT community in places like that… On another note, being part of a majority doesn’t mean you can’t be aware of a minority’s struggles. </p>
<p>Anyway, Cuttycavs, I think that if you’re careful with how you phrase it, your essay could be fantastic. I don’t know much about the schools you’re applying to though, so be sure to research them thoroughly enough to be absolutely sure that they’re liberal enough before sending in an essay like that.</p>
<p>The OP didn’t say what the topic of the essay was.</p>
<p>I assume that the essay won’t be complimentary to small, southern towns. What if the admissions advisor is from a small, southern town and takes great pride in it?</p>
<p>Given that there are so many other things to write about, I just don’t see why you would want to go there.</p>
<p>I would expect the essay to be as about complimentary of small, southern towns–or, at least, of one particular small, southern town–as the small, southern town in question is accepting of openly gay people. Indeed, I can totally understand why a person might limit his praise of a small, southern town based on that parameter.</p>
<p>As for a reason to go there, how about this? After growing up openly gay in a town where being out is not well tolerated, perhaps a person wouldn’t want to attend a college where being out is not well tolerated. So, if writing this essay killed the author’s chances for admission, it’s just as well, because it’s probably not a college where he would have been happy for four years.</p>
<p>I think writing an essay on this topic is highly self-indulgent and could unneccesarily hurt ones chances of getting into a perfectly acceptable college.</p>
<p>I would avoid writing an essay that would likely be negative to a number of different groups. Better to stay positive than to risk offending someone.</p>
<p>The OP has already said that he wasn’t going to write on this topic, but if he changes his mind, I’d like to read it.</p>
<p>Have you considered that there are some people are just uncomfortable around those who flaunt their sexuality, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual?</p>
<p>But our sexuality shapes our lives. I honestly can’t imagine what my life would have been like so far if I was heterosexual. It’s as defining as being an African-American was during the Civil Rights movement. And you know why? Because people aren’t okay with it. That’s what makes it about more than just “I’m gay and I have a boyfriend (assuming OP is male, girlfriend if female)”. It makes it about personal growth, about learning to not care what people who don’t like you think. </p>
<p>Apparently, you’ve never talked to anybody in a small southern town about their views on homosexuality (and other non-hetero behavior). In my small southern town, we aren’t aloud to start a GSA. The closest thing we can get is making a page on Facebook. That’s what the vast majority of small southern towns are like.</p>
<p>What kind of spin can be put on building houses for habitat for humanity? Or helping at the animal shelter? Or working a food drive? We’ve heard all of these stories before too. </p>
<p>When I start college applications, my essay will be about myself being queer and how it helped me grow as a person. I’m willing to be denied acceptance because if I am then I most likely won’t be happy at the school.</p>
<p>And one sentence that you wrote- “I don’t see why you would want to go there”. Go where? To a fundamental part of their lives, that makes them different, as evidenced by the fact that my sexuality can legally get me fired where I live? Okay. I’ll tell the same story as twenty of my classmates about how we donated toys to kids on Christmas.</p>
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<p>That’s very considerate of you. There are lots of gay people who are made to feel like second-class citizens when straight people put photos of their families in their work spaces, and when straight women go around talking about “my husband” or “my boyfriend,” or straight men talk about their wives or girlfriends, with complete impunity. It will be a great day when straight people stop rubbing their heterosexuality in people’s faces that way.</p>
<p>I never considered talking about ones spouse or children as flaunting ones sexuality. That’s a new one to me.</p>