Is this a good common app essay topic?

College Essays
1

<p>For the common app essay asking you to reflect on a time you challenged a belief or idea, I was thinking about writing about how I am reforming our student cheering section as President of student council.</p>

<p>Basically, up until this year (we are launching new student cheer club this fall), student fan group used to just cheer for football. It was run by people who sometimes did not make the best decisions (i.e. cheers that degraded the other team, inappropriate drawings on whiteboards, etc.). This group was not a club and the leaders were chosen by the previous year's leaders. Also, freshmen + sophomores were not allowed to sit in the section. There has been little to no student cheering/support for any other sport at our school besides football.</p>

<p>Football games and the cheers, etc. are really focused around tradition at my school, as I'm sure it is with many other schools. I want to write about how I went to change this process and how I had to face what many HS students dread of facing--rejection from their peers (bc a lot of people were opposed to this idea at first) in order to change the system so leaders are selected based on involvement in school, everyone's included, and other sports are recognized & cheered on.</p>

<p>I think this essay would really show leadership & true involvement in school/school spirit. However, I am concerned this topic sounds juvenile. I'm writing an essay about challenging beliefs and ideas and basically just writing an essay about how the fan group at my school sucked and that I made it better. It doesn't really sound like anything a college would care about... I guess that's why I have my reservations about writing about this topic. Also, I know many schools also have tradition to their sports rituals and many of them do have seniors getting priority seating & only one or 2 main sports... So I don't want them to think that I wouldn't be a good fit at their school bc I can't deal with that sort of stuff... (Which isn't true, I definitely could! It was just more the management of how it was being run, but those other issues were things we changed too!)</p>

<p>What do you guys think? Is this essay idea something that could win over top-tier schools? Obviously it's also about HOW it's written, but I want to make sure I have a solid idea.</p>

2

<p>No, I disagree. I think it sounds refreshing and might be a welcome read to an Ad officer who has been reading nothing but stories of family tragedy. The key will be the ability to write about it with style and humor as compared to teenager criticism. Use crisp clean prose. Try to build a good story with character introduction, conflict, and if possible a happy ending- over coming adversity ending. GL</p>

3

<p>Why was changing the cheer group important to you? Right now, it does sound sort of insignificant to me, but if you can convey why you felt it was worth changing in your essay, it might work.</p>

4

<p>I think it sounds like a good essay topic, just make sure to convey how involved you were, and why you felt so strongly about it.</p>