Out of the four prompts, I decided to pick these two.
Reflecting on your experience and aspirations, discuss how your life will differ from your parents’ lives. Provide concrete evidence to illustrate your position.
Pick a story of local, national, or international importance from the front page of any newspaper. Identify your source and give the date the article appeared. Then use your sense of humor, sense of outrage, sense of injustice – or just plain good sense – to explain why the story engages your attention.
Does any have some tips on how to structure these essays? Additionally, I’m having trouble finding a news story to write about. I don’t want my essay to be too generic, since the Macaulay school stated that I should try to be “exceptional”.
It’s probably important to frame it as what are admissions folks looking to get out of your response to these essays. Our general philosophy around college essays is that they need to prove that you will be successful there and beyond. This means that your essays should structure around key traits that you want to demonstrate to help them imagine you existing on their campus, taking their classes, getting involved with their communities, etc. Both of these essays are meant to give you an opportunity to shed light on these traits.
The first one can be interpreted in different ways. You can tackle this from a drive standpoint (i.e. pushing yourself to succeed no matter how long the odds; going through difficult situations and coming out a better person). One other way is to look at it as showcasing your initiative (i.e. Not willing to accept the status quo; entrepreneurial; always thinking of ways to improve whatever they are working on or involved with such as making their organizations better or improving ways of doing things).
The second one is less about avoiding a “generic” news story but more about how you are interpreting that story. At the end of the day, your essays are about you so it’s a space to showcase how you think, organize, and present information.
The first prompt is designed to assess an applicant’s intellectual depth. Guiding one on how to frame a response defeats the purpose of this type of essay. Nevertheless, the prompt does instruct applicants “to provide concrete evidence to illustrate your position”.
In my opinion, the second prompt has little to do with how you interpret the story. The second prompt is designed to reveal an applicant’s use of logic in supporting one’s position.
I do agree that essays are an opportunity for an applicant to show “how you think, organize, and present information”.