<p>I've written a rough draft of a college essay. I took a sort of traumatic experience and addressed in a very light, humorous fashion. It made my sister laugh out loud. I just wonder, how much is too much? </p>
<p>I don't want the admissions people to not take me seriously. Where does one draw the line? Should an essay lean more on the serious side?</p>
<p>I tend to be a funny person (or at least I tell myself I am), so it's just written in my voice. </p>
<p>I'm so torn.</p>
<p>I think if you have other people read it and they're not offended, then it's definitely worth it (just make sure they're honest people and don't want to not make you feel bad). As long as you're not grossly flippant, the admissions staff is going to take you seriously. If you're really worried about it, then you might want to tag a paragraph at the end with a more serious tone.</p>
<p>edit:
Just out of curiosity, what traumatic event did you write about? (you don't have to share if you don't want to)</p>
<p>Hmmm, I once did a humorous essay, though I'm not normally funny [rather quirky funny], and so for my Harvey Mudd app I wrote a ridiculous poem describing myself using rhyming couplets with many personal tidbits about myself, though I knew I was taking a risk with this [though it was for HMC so it didn't concern me as much] which is why I reserved it for only a college that I was on the fence about attending, though at least it apparently worked.</p>
<p>It really depends on which school you apply to. Some of the schools with quirky "personas" for the lack of a better word would like those funny essays, while others would definitely not like them.</p>
<p>It really depends on the University you are sending the essay to.</p>
<p>My experience was a cyst that started eating away my jaw. Honestly, none of the doctors and whatnot that my parents took me to ever figured out what caused it. It was really strange and took a long time to, er, deal with. I finally had surgery to remove the cyst, and my jaw... came back. But it was never gone. It just never appeared in x-rays, and we took a million x-rays with all these different crazy machines. It sounds so weird. It was. I've had a lot of problems with my mouth, really ridiculous problems. Which is probably why it's easy to treat it all in a humorous fashion.</p>
<p>I plan on applying to some sorta quirky schools, so I think I'm ok. I'll probably e-mail it to my guidance counselor at some point and see what she thinks.</p>
<p>Knowing that, I don't think you'll have a problem at all. I was a little worried before because I thought it was something like.. someone you know passed away in a car crash, or your grandma had cancer or something... and you were, uh, very sick and twisted. But, yeah, you should be okay.</p>
<p>Oh, god no! Haha, I guess I should have specified in the original post. eek</p>
<p>I say if you want to be funny, be as funny as you can, but only if it's your style.</p>
<p>I'm sure admissions readers like the occasional comedic break. Go for it!</p>
<p>it really depends on who reads it. some people have no sense of humor at all and then you're screwed. but i'd go with humor. after reading a million essays, i'd rather read one that'd make me laugh even if it is offensive. but your idea sounds really creative. plus if you're a funny individual, it'll reflect in your essays and that will make u stand out. </p>
<p>everything's a risk. but remember, sometimes you can't get far if you don't take the risk.</p>
<p>best of luck to you!</p>
<p>Give it to your counselor and English teachers and have them critique it.</p>
<p>I would totally go the humourous route.. just don't go overkill.</p>
<p>One of my supp. essays for a school was based on a prompt about overcoming fear. I'm sure many applicants addressed the quote in the prompt seriously and thoroughly, but I just wrote about my long time fear of jumping from the neighborhood high-dive. I mean, in retrospect, it was a pretty substanceless piece. But everyone who read it loved it because dry, written humor is what I'm good at. Sounds like this goes for you as well, and if so, I think its really important to convey this to the adcoms.</p>
<p>Where are you applying? (just out of curiousity.. )</p>
<p>Yeah, my sense of humor is pretty dry. </p>
<p>I started to feel like my essay lacked substance, so I included a sort of thesis to tie the anecdote in with what I learned from it, rather than just telling the story. It toned down the humor a little.</p>
<p>I don't have an official final list of schools, but I like Wesleyan and Brown the most at this point. I just started reading about Bard and it sounds neat. I also like Tufts and NYU. Rutgers is my safety.</p>