I am panicked about my college essay topic

College Essays
1

I’ve been thinking about what I want to write about for my commonapp for at least 6 months but I have come up with barely any ideas, and I feel terribly about all of them. Please tell me if any of my ideas could possibly work, or how, or if I should try to come up with other topics. I’ve set a deadline for myself to get a rough draft done tonight, but I’ve been coming up dry.
Topic ideas:


[QUOTE=""]

For prompt 1 - my love of science, biology + physics
For prompt 3 maybe? When I challenged what a teacher said and subsequently started participating more in classes as I realized participation had more depth than just a hoop to jump through to get good grades.
For prompt 1 - I’m very competitive

[/QUOTE]

Gosh I honestly can’t flush out any more ideas. I find it very difficult to define myself and say who I am, which is what the college admissions officers seem to be looking for. Please help if you can. I don’t blame you if you can’t

2

Here’s what I want you to do the next time you have a day off. (Tomorrow, if you’re off for the Jewish Holy Days and it isn’t a religious holiday for you.)

Write each prompt on a piece of paper. Set a time for 5 minutes per topic. Then, for each prompt, I want you to brainstorm. Don’t worry about big topics, I want examples. The kinds of stories you talk about with family-- “remember the time that CollegeMint…” type of stuff. No restrictions…anything that comes to mind gets written down. And I want at least 3 or 4 per prompt. When the bell rings you get a drink of water or check your email, then come back to the essay. When you finish, you put it away.

Then, over the weekend, take it out. Eliminate the totally unworkable, and write bullets of what you would say for each essay. And put it away.

Then, next time, choose your favorite and start to write.