<p>I know in apps you need there's a spot to write down books you've read for fun, aside from school reading. I know this sounds weird, but what books are good to put down? I don't just mean it like that, but I mean what are some good books that also look good to put in an app. Anyone who got admitted into any Ivy's know any? I'm guessing Twilight and Harry Potter wouldn't really be the best. Thanks!</p>
<p>Descartes, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Mill, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Augustine, Anselm, Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Polybius, Tacitus, Tocqueville, Marx, Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Kant, Burke… take your pick. </p>
<p>But I’d personally put down a modern novel… Harry Potter is never out of the question.</p>
<p>Wait, so you’re asking for names and titles that would make you look smart without the intention of actually reading them?</p>
<p>It would be great if you had an extensive listing of the authors on Gryffon’s list, but if no other part of your app shows your intellectual curiosity and capability in that kind of reading, giving the list wouldn’t mean a thing.</p>
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<p>Not sure the OP actually intends on reading them as it’s likely for those short answers that many colleges ask these days: What are your favorite books? If you had a free afternoon, what would you do? etc.</p>
<p>No, no. I am going to read them lol. Lot of free time this summer, that’s why I’m asking :]</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses! A lot of works by those authors sound really interesting.</p>
<p>^^^Glad to hear it!</p>
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<p>That list is missing Machiavelli, Hobbes, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Sartre, and Camus! </p>
<p>But in all seriousness, at an info session, the admissions officer told us that a question like “What’s your favorite book?” is meant to probe at your intellectual interests, so he recommended not putting answers like “Harry Potter” or “Twilight”.</p>
<p>That said, I’m pretty sure listing dense philosophical texts can come off as pretentious and may appear as though you’re trying too hard to impress the adcoms, so I’d be wary of using them. Rather, just include books of literary merit that you actually enjoyed.</p>
<p>Oh and also, avoid Ayn Rand.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t think it is necessary to go with the older classics since well, they’re probably more predictable and would probably seem less genuine. Of the people who might put down Plato, I doubt that a majority of them were actually truly impacted by the book.</p>
<p>During my college apps, I put down books that I really did find very thought provoking and interesting. They also happened to illuminate facets of my personality and intellectual thoughts, too, which happens to be a bonus.</p>
<p>If you are a science orientated person, “The Elegant Universe” and “Fabric of the Cosmos” by Brian Greene offer a very workable explanation of basic general relativity and quantum mechanics. The Elegant Universe goes into some string theory that is a bit more dense but it is fine too. I feel that those two books really illustrate the wonders of modern physics much more than standard mechanics in HS physics.</p>
<p>I’ve also found Superfreakonomics and Freakonomics to be quite interesting mostly because it offers what most would consider an unique way at looking at things.</p>