Hi!
I am currently finishing up my junior year in high school and thinking about college essay topics. I’ve always heard that people say to write about things you are passionate about. For me, that is figure skating.
However, I have not been skating for that long. I didn’t get into skating until my freshman year of high school, but I immediately fell in love with it. I did several activities related to skating, including becoming the skating school instructor and volunteering at my ice rink. Although I sincerely love this sport and put in a lot of time, I am nowhere near good at it, nor did I compete in any events.
Is it something that I should be writing my main essay about?
My dream school is Brown, if that helps.
Thanks in advance
In my opinion WHAT you write about is not that important, it is what you say, and most importantly how the topic illustrates something about YOU. No Admissions Office cares about skating or whatever, they are using their short time reading your application to get to know YOU. So, skating could be a fantastic choice! As long as you use that topic to really say something about yourself, something that might not come across in other parts of the application.
Usually there are prompts to answer when writing your essay. Be sure your essay completely and thoroughly answers that prompt. Also, is it appropriate for that prompt. You don’t want to force fit your essay to the prompt as it would make it sound very odd.
It is best to write about something you are passionate about and so skating could very well be that subject.
Ad comms are most interested in seeing how you talk about your topic and what that says about you. They don’t really care whether you are good at the thing you are describing. In fact, I could see a very funny essay coming from someone who was consumed with a sport or activity and was still mediocre at it.