<p>Honestly? There's no way to tell you exactly what you should do. People have stories about how risk paid off, but there are, I'm sure, plenty more where applicants took the risk and failed.</p>
<p>Risk is risky, and the more risk you take, the more risky it is. Way too risky would be going against what the stated guidelines of the application stay. But anything other than that may or may not pay off in the end. </p>
<p>How much risk should you take? If you have fairly safe stats, I'd say take little to no risk. If you have no chance of getting in unless you have a spectacular essay, then take all the risk you want.</p>
<p>i figure, if the risk you want to take reflects who you are, and what you would bring to campus, then go for it. if it's really you, you're more likely to be able to pull it off and be believable.</p>
<p>if its not you, dont do it. it'll come off forced, and thats the last thing a tired admissions officer needs after a long day. like its been said before, the essays are about showing who you are. show yourself :)</p>
<p>^^^^ and following up on ameikle1's excellent point, if you go for it because it reflects who you are and you don't get in, that may indicate that you're not a great match for the institution. In which case, the process worked just the way it's supposed to work.</p>
<p>^^^^^ Contrived sounds contrived. I really believe that focusing on some small, but significant aspect of your life is the best. You sound like you are smart enough not to brag or reiterate what has already been cited in your application. And don't worry too much. An admissions officer once said something to the effect that a great essay can't raise the dead, but it can help the sick. Not the exact quote, but you get the point. If the rest of your app is not to the school's standards, the essay will not get you in.</p>
<p>Actually, your conclusion assumes that that only one student has ever done it. Both stories could be wrong, both could be true, or one could be true. Besides, there have been a few unbelievable stoies in this thread. We don't KNOW for sure what's true...Just keep some salt handy.</p>
<p>How about the guy who just wrote "this"? Honestly, I think that this many people telling the same, unlikely story most likely indicates that this never really happened, or that none of these people knew anyone who did it.</p>
<p>Except that those kinds of stories are well-known by now (how many instances of something similar came up in this thread?) that nothing like that would probably work. Time to take risk in new, creative ways...</p>
<p>^^ I assumed you and Johnson were. But I'm sure there are some people reading this thread who might get the idea to try something along those lines (though maybe not the same thing), and that'd probably be a bad idea.</p>
<p>Take risks, but don't be stupid and don't be a copycat. And don't do something that's opposite to who you are just because you think the college is going to like it.</p>
<p>I asked a similar question at a Duke meeting. They definitely said don't do anything weird with the format. I would strongly caution writing a poem.</p>
<p>But a poem can be done, especially if it has more of a narrative feel. I wrote one of my essays for a rather prestigious college as a letter, which while not as risky as a poem, is not what they said to do format-wise.</p>
<p>And my topic for Duke while not extremely out there, was a bit risky, as I wrote about one of my failings and didn't say I was making progress on working on it or whatever (it's not a huge failing, but it definitely could have been interpreted in such a way that would make me seem unfit for such a prestigious school).</p>
<p>(Edited to add: And yes, I got into both of those schools).</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>