<p>I tried to put myself in the position of someone at the admissions office who reads hundreds and hundreds of essays, and if I was one of these people, I wouldn't want a boring essay, no matter how well written it is. I would want something to stick out! to make me WANT to read it. So how far is going TOO far...I plan on applying to pretty prestigious schools (MIT, Yale, Cornell, and a few others) so I want to make my application stick out! For example, my high school transcript is very good, but my SAT scores arent through the roof, so I want to make up for it in my essay. but i dont want to commit 'application suicide' so to speak. help??</p>
<p>Well, what were you thinking of?</p>
<p>Examples of things that may be too risky- illegal activities, questionable activities (i.e. saying you're a member of the kkk), etc.</p>
<p>No thats not what i meant by risky.
haha
i meant more like writing style. Like for example, writing the essay as a poem. or stuff like that. do you get what i mean? or use a sense or humor in it that you might be taking a risk with</p>
<p>Oh, I don't think that's too risky at all.
A lot of schools specifically say you can use whatever format you want (one of mine said any medium, including pictures), and encourage different types of writing.
However, make sure the school doesn't say "don't do xyz."</p>
<p>In regards to humor, every app. I've read says the essays can be as serious as you want or as humorous, so that shouldn't be a problem.</p>
<p>Thank you veryyy much =]</p>
<p>nerdygirl:</p>
<p>The issue with risk is how much of a boost you need to gain admission to a particular school. If you have a good chance without the risk, then don't take it. If you don't have a good chance, then what have you got to lose?</p>
<p>Humor. I've had admissions officers tell me that real humor is extremely rare. Instead, they get a lot of people trying to be funny and it doesn't come off well. If you can pull it off, then go for it. If you can't pull it off, avoid it.</p>
<p>I saw one ad. officer for an Ivy League school give a speech in which he read some of the essays he liked and some he held up to ridicule. One of the ones he held up to ridicule sounded, to me, like the beginning of an excellent novel. Not surprisingly, this admissions officer had told us that his background was in business. It wasn't as if he really knew anything about good writing. One of the essays he liked sounded to me like pretty standard fare about customs in a Finnish sauna. The one he didn't like was from a young man who talked about the trouble he had getting his head around the fact that his parents "did it."</p>
<p>Risk is ... well ... a bit risky.</p>
<p>Your essay should reflect you and your accomplishments -- that's hard to pull off. While you might write a great essay about a relative or a social issue, can you impart into those 500 words how they affected you? Can you impart something about you in a poem format? your reader isn't going to be mouthing it in meter -- honesty, sincerity and revelation are the goals you want to aim for. </p>
<p>As for humor, unless you're a published humorist (i.e. have that level of ability) don't do it, I'd say (and what a Yale rep just told his crowd at an info session)</p>
<p>You might browse a few books on the subject, such as "50 Successful Harvard Application Essays: What Worked for Them Can Help You Get into the College of Your Choice", 2nd Edition (Paperback) . Lots of different formats, writing styles, cartoons even.</p>
<p>This link has good advice, including some discussion of "risky" essays:</p>
<p>In this discussion, don't forget that one essay, cited in the recent kaplan / newsweek college guide that said...</p>
<p>quote--</p>
<p>...a student's taking a rather literal approach to these application instructions: </p>
<p>"Ask yourself a question and give us the answer." The student wrote: "Do you play the tuba?" The answer: "No." </p>
<p>In the anecdote, some of the admissions officers were irritated by the cryptic reply; others praised it as uniquely revealing. It certainly meshed with teacher recommendations, which described the student as a bright risk-taker who didn't worship at the altar of grades.</p>
<p>Colleagues who hear the story and who think the student's essay was smart, sassy and fun aren't surprised to learn he was accepted at a top school. But that same essay could have produced different results. If the teacher letters had described a pest who questioned authority just for the sake of questioning, or if he had poor grades or scores, he could've been read as a smart aleck. The integrity of the application would have dissolved.</p>
<p>---end quote</p>
<p>Hahahaha, that's hilarious! The guy's as genius. I'm serious, I'm laughing tears. Now THAT's risky.</p>
<p>I've gotten the impression that, as someone already alluded to, it totally depends on the admissions officer. In fact, taking the measure of the admissions officer who will be reading <em>your</em> essay seems to me the only good reason to go to any of those "XXX College is visiting Somewhere-Near-You!" events.</p>
<p>A great example of this was the UPenn/Stanford/Georgetown/Harvard held near the end of last year in Hartford. The regional admissions officers from each school were there, and I learned two very important things:
1) The Stanford admissions officer who will most likely be reading my essays is very open-minded and has a great sense of humor.
2) The Harvard admissions officer for CT just... isn't, and doesn't.</p>
<p>I will definitely structure my essays accordingly. (Well, the supplements, at least - common app throws a wrench into the works of the "targeted essays" idea.)</p>
<p>ethanrt, I think it doesn't much depend on who the admission officer is as a whole. I think it depends on their mood and how much they've read in one given day. Get what I mean?</p>
<p>Think about it, after reading 43 essays by 9:00 pm, I don't think you want to be bothered by a 3-4 page boring essay.
So yeah, I think it all depends on mood</p>
<p>Note: I think the common application is extremely annoying for a few reasons.</p>
<p>Note again: Hunt for the "Authentic" ;)</p>
<p>Hah, that reminds me. Some guy I know who wanted to go to Harvard, his number 1 school, had to write an essay. The prompt was to write a 3 page essay on courage. </p>
<p>He turned in 3 blank pages, but at the very end of the last one, he wrote "Now that's courage."</p>
<p>UnleashedFury, what the?
are you serious? Did he get in?
wasn't he nervous?</p>
<p>He got in.</p>
<p>3 page essay for Harvard? Never.
That's an old college story that has been circulating that on an exam the question was 'what is courage' and the kid just rights this is and turns it in.</p>
<p>I knew the guy...</p>
<p>Doubtful...</p>
<p>My English teacher told us of a friend who wrote a pretty standard essay with the prompt "Pick one word that you think describes you and elaborate on it" and got accepted and went off to college, and when he asked his roommate what his essay was about he said his essay consisted of:</p>
<p>"Concise."</p>
<p>That's risky.</p>