<p>Dean J posted the essay topics on the blog.</p>
<p>Notes</a> from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: 2010-2011 Application Essays</p>
<p>•Describe the world you come from and how that world shaped who you are.</p>
<p>I really dislike this question. This will be the one where everyone hust mopes about the hardships they’ve been through, and maybe 3/4 of them will be true.</p>
<p>Also I’m really glad I didn’t get that engineering question</p>
<p>M4dskillz07, I actually like that question alot. I plan on writing about how I came from a very fortunate backround where I was almost spoild (well maybe I’m) but how different my life is from the real world. I’m going to write about how my job was my first “real world” experience. I couldn’t just ask my parents to get me something but I had to work for it. The question is actually great if your not going to just write another “Mc Essay” (that ones for you dean J), but you write about your real life. The Adcoms will know the lies people are thinking of already.</p>
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How about “irony”, Highlandmom ;)</p>
<p>do you guys think that essays have to be creative and original? I am a very blunt writer and get to the point in my essays and i think i have a pretty strong voice in my papers, so i was wondering if I should try making this creative or just upfront with my true self?</p>
<p>interesting, as a college we did not vote for the particular question that made it to the application. you can see other questions uva admissions borrowed from us by going to the brown college website, resources-archives, and look under housing applications. particularly noteworthy is how in 1991 we ask a question remarkably similar to the favorite word question posted above… As the wayback machine only goes to 1997 I cannot affirm that BC used this question first but I see no reason why we would repeat a question from the admissions application on our quirky housing application…</p>
<p>addendum: on that same application we ask the CLAS question about inspiring art/literature as well…</p>
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<p>I’d definitely approach this as more of a creative writing rather than some sort of analytical prose (which you likely have more experience with). The key with these essays is to:</p>
<p>1) Show, not tell
2) Come across as an interesting person</p>
<p>It’s often a good idea to limit your essay to one particular experience or event if you don’t know where to start, but not strictly necessary. Try to think about things that make you a unique individual and how this uniqueness manifests itself in reality.</p>
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The governance board at Brown was involved in selecting the question. :)</p>
<p>…yes, we were, and we chose a different question as far as i know was my point</p>
<p>I’d have to look at my emails, but quite a few questions were tossed around. In fact, I think the students narrowed the list down and we picked the final question for the app.</p>
<p>I hope you aren’t annoyed by this…we thought it was a great thing to include students in the questions.</p>
<p>No, I think they were all good questions. I think much of the app reflects us anyways as I already posted above. 
So I’m glad we get credit for this one!</p>
<p>For this topic:
“Describe the world you come from and how that world shaped who you are.”</p>
<p>do we have to be very broad in our description of our “world”, or is it fine to cover 1-2 aspects that are significant? I’m pretty sure this is the case, but no harm in confirmation :)</p>
<p>Also, would someone be willing to read my essay for the above topic? if so, ill pm it.
thanks very much!</p>
<p>^ i can read. I’m not applying UVA so no conflict of interests.</p>
<p>thanks, lindazhaang. I actually just sent it in today. I figured i would have a cc-person take a look but someone else did and i figured, what the heck, and submitted.</p>