<p>My D has written her Common App essay on the influence of a fictional character in her life. She wants to use the same essay for her National Merit app. The National Merit prompt says you may write about a person. The question is, will a fictional person be ok with the evaluating committee? What do you think?</p>
<p>I think I would steer away from a fictional character to be on the safe side (and I understand trying to use a college essay for this purpose because my son wanted to do it too).</p>
<p>My inclination is to play it safe, as well, but D doesn’t want to write another essay, of course. To make it worse from the perspective of convincing her, she’s got a lot of terrific feedback on the essay and thinks it will be so well loved that they’ll overlook that it’s a fictional person. Anyone else want to weigh in?</p>
<p>Or maybe it’s worth a call to the NMSC to see how much latitude they are willing to give in the essay?</p>
<p>My D also wrote her common app essay on the impact of a fictional character, but she assumed that was NOT what the NMF application question was looking for. She wrote a separate essay for the NMF app. She did not want to take any chances on reducing her scholarship chances by not following the prompt…</p>
<p>Just to add, I think it is not the person who answers the phone at NMSC who judges the essays. My understanding is that it is a committee of college admission reps from colleges across the country that get together. So not sure they would follow whatever the person on the phone tells you…</p>
<p>Thanks, catalina & intparent, for your input. I agree that submitting this fictional character essay is risky.</p>
<p>I had no idea how the scholarship evaluation would be done. Your insights are helpful, intparent.</p>