<p>What did you guys write your optional essays about?</p>
<p>I went out on a limb, and wrote about a future experience - my year as a surgical intern. I don't know if that will hurt me, but hopefully it'll be seen as the "good-unusual" :)</p>
<p>I used my princeton supplement essay.</p>
<p>mine’s about being dual-nationality.</p>
<p>My Princeton Supplement essay… about my past experience as a surgical intern.</p>
<p>I’m using my Princeton Supplement essay, which fortunately contains nothing related to past, present or future experiences as a surgical intern.</p>
<p>Haha I, too, used my princeton/yale supplement
not surgical intern-y though xD</p>
<p>I did the reading list (about 70 books). Did anyone else pick that one?</p>
<p>I originally planned to do the booklist, but I’ve been so busy this year that I’ve read like half the number of books I normally do, and my ComApp essay was on books, so I didn’t want to sound too bookish.
I used my Georgetown essay, about when one of my friends moved.</p>
<p>Lol I too used my Yale/Princeton supplement essay. It was just so convenient to write it for princeton, then send it to both Harvard and Yale which have no specific promps.</p>
<p>I discussed unusual life circumstances.</p>
<p>Thank god I didn’t pick the book list … that book list is less than 5 books lol</p>
<p>i used U Chicago’s essay, for which I created my own prompt.</p>
<p>my essay is on a particular word in the English language and how the different meanings of the word applies to different parts of my life. :)</p>
<p>I wrote an essay about an influential book, but at the last minute I decided to write a new essay about being gay. I didn’t really write about coming out, but about the identity issues that follow. For the longest time I couldn’t decide which essay to send. I liked the book one because it showed an intellectual side of me that complimented the rest of my application. At the same time I was hesitant to submit the gay one as I had already submitted a very serious essay for the common app. In the end, I was drawn to the personal nature of my second essay, and regardless of whether it was the right choice, I’m glad I chose it :)</p>
<p>Used my Yale essay, which was actually different from my Princeton one haha. It was about my passion for literary and cinematic translation.</p>
<p>I only have a question. The “Possible Topics” for the Harvard essay are not mandatory? I mean, you don’t have to definitely chose one of them?</p>
<p>I wrote a list of facts about me.</p>
<p>Princeton/Yale Supplement essay, just like half of the people here.</p>
<p>I used the same one for Princeton, Brown, and Harvard. It was about how Twilight was a major influence in my life because it made me realize what good writing was… Not Twilight. lol.</p>
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<p>I think that’s a really clever one! What was the word?</p>
<p>@dreaming92 - my common app essay is about my dual nationality! It’s mostly about reconciling two languages.</p>
<p>Like almost everyone, I used my Princeton essay which was my UChicago essay modified - it was about how I changed as a photographer after someone took a picture of me.</p>
<p>My common app essay was about my passion for books and reading, so I didn’t want to do the book list for the supplement. I ended up writing about how my life is like a stain-glass window with a lot of cohesive parts. “Glitter by themselves but must be looked at as a whole…etc…etc.” And then I went into about 6 or so paragraphs detailing little parts of myself and my life that were not in my application. I kind of felt like it might be a cliche tactic, but I thought it was well written at least.</p>
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…glitter is a collective noun- should use singlar pronoun
also that sentence doesn’t make sense :/</p>