Good Topic or too Cliché?

College Essays
1

Hi,
So I was planning on responding to the first question on common app, “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.” However, I want to make sure my essay idea wouldn’t be considered “cliché”.

So when I was 14, my mom died of cancer. From that moment on I basically became “the girl who’s mom died”. Instead of taking that identity as a piece of my whole identity and past, I did everything in my power for nearly a year trying to erase that, as if it never happened. I wanted to write about how doing this caused me a lot of personal suffering, and now I know that while I can’t change my past or what has happened to me, both good and bad experiences make a person who they are as a whole, and I wouldn’t be the same person I am today if I wasn’t “the girl who’s mom died”.
Or something like that.
Is that too much of a sob story or does it show potential? Sob story/cliché isn’t the intention in the slightest, I just thought that it was a bit of a twist on the whole “background/identity” because technically, I am incomplete without it since it’s a part of who I am. I also don’t want to write an entire essay and then be told “This is bad and overdone”. Any tips would be appreciated!

2

That kind of events are not clichés, not even near. Just write what you want to write without using any inappropriate vocabulary.

3

It’s your story, so use it. But make sure you focus on the positives of it and reveal in some way how you’ve changed as a person or what it told you about yourself. Remember: colleges want to know about YOU, not just the event.

4

I can’t see how your mother dying when you were 14 can be anything but a hugely significant event that shaped you as a person.