<p>i've been racking my brain for the past few weeks trying to come up with something to write about for my supplementary essay. my common app essay is finished, and about as polished as i think i can get it. i think it's a solid essay, and i put a lot of myself into it. i can't for the life of me think of something to write the sup. essay about. i'm just a (relatively) normal teenage kid with a passion for life and learning, and no major life-changing experiences to speak of.</p>
<p>i am extremely interested in the sciences, and this is evident throughout my app. a friend of mine suggested i write about how i came to love science, how it affects my day-to-day thinking processes, and how i view science to be more of a philosophical endeavor than an academic one. i think this could become a solid essay, but i'm afraid the topic may be seen as trite, unimpressive or disingenuous. should i give it a go?</p>
<p>the topic itself has the potential of making a really good essay, but like most topics, it depends on what you can do with it and if you can give an original twist to it...if you have some kind of illustrative anecdote that can show how you came to like science or how you changed your view of the pursuit of science, that would probably make your essay more personal...and then you can go from personal to more general</p>
<p>yeah. it doesn't really matter what you write about--it matters what your writing shows about you. so the topic is just a vehicle for showing something about you.
also--english teachers and GCs are often no help. it depends on what kind of school you go to...i was one of the avg ~1% of kids from my school who go to HYPSM (im at yale now), so my teachers and GCs were not really prepared for these kind of essays...</p>
<ul>
<li>sounds interesting.</li>
<li>I like Writing the College Essay by Harry Bauld, but his style may be a little too New Yorker-y for such a short essay.</li>
<li>I wrote my supplemental on speech and debate, which is far more cliche (in my experience) than science.</li>
</ul>