<p>Im applying to places like Syracuse, Rice, Cornell for architecture. They have a separate essay requirement for architecture in their supplement. So i dont want to touch this in my common app. topic. </p>
<p>When i was 5 years old, i was seduced into sodomy by my father's later employee. He would be called in to help with house chores, and other tasks such as giving me a bath, getting me dressed for school etc. At that time i didnt even know what sex was. It was later when i was 12, when i realised what had happened. I still remember that point, when i was sitting on my bed one afternoon. Just read something about sex (Everyone our age back at that time was curious to know what the whole sex thing was about)...and then it hit me...</p>
<p>I want to write about this experience, how i dealt with it, how my personality/ habits changed and the eventual confrontation. </p>
<p>Question is, is this a good topic to write about? Would it tell the colleges about who i am? what topic would it come under:</p>
<p>"Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you"</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>"Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence"</p>
<p>Also, im gay. Now i dont know if its that experience that made me gay. Or if i was gay from before. Heck i was just 5 back then. Should i mention this, incorporate this into the same essay. Or write about it in a separate box which asks for extra info we'd like to tell the colleges.</p>
<p>Well, this is a VERY touchy and personal issue. It’s quite hard to tell how colleges will take it; if they’ll understand it or look on it disdainfully.
I personally would oh consider sending it to schools who are historically more liberal and open than conservative ones. However, you could submit it to all your schools and if a school you seemed already qualified for rejects you on the topic of your essay, at least you’ll know you wouldn’t have been happy among the student body they’d created anyway.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I’ve always taken the common app essay as a chance to develop who you are and make yourself a personable and relatable person. But if you are a good writer, you can succeed in going do no matter what topic you choose. If you know how you are going to approach this delicate topic, it can work. Best of luck.</p>
<p>Ack. I’m typing on an iPod and I made some typos. I meant to say “you can succeed in doing so.”</p>
<p>I guess I’m trying to say that it’s a tough topic and if you feel that it can best convey to the admission officers who you are and the person you will be at their college, go for it.</p>
<p>I think it would be better to write about something that is far less intimate. If you were planning to become a psychologist or social worker to help kids who were sexual abuse victims and were, for instance, applying to grad school, it would be appropriate to write about your topic and to explain how your personal experience inspired you to want to help others in similar situations.</p>
<p>For the kind of programs that you’re applying to, however, I think that your essay will just make admissions officers feel uncomfortable because what you’re describing seems more like something to reveal to a therapist or a very close personal friend than to let someone know who’s on a college admissions committee.</p>
<p>From your speculations about whether the sexual abuse relates to your sexual orientation, it also seems that you’d be using the essay as a means of figuring out more about yourself. That’s more reason to share the info with a therapist or a personal journal, not with an admissions committee.</p>
<p>For this essay, it would be better to talk about a situation or person who has helped shape your life in a good way. This will allow you to reveal more about your strengths and what you have to offer the university.</p>
<p>Ohk, understood. I’ve decided what i want to write about. for two years i had been hosting a radio show. And getting to talk to/ interact with callers from places within Pakistan which i hadn’t even heard of, was an amazing experience. And i have an idea on how to begin and end. Though il have to think deep to how that experience evolved me as a person.</p>
<p>Question is, in the additional info. section of the common app. Should i mention my sexual abuse and orientation? Would they get uncomfortable? Should i mention just the orientation and not the abuse? I dont want to risk my chances of getting in in anyway.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any reason for you to mention your sexual abuse and orientation unless those experiences relate to your choice of major or organizations/events you’ve organized such as if you helped start a hotline or other services for sexual abuse victims or for gay teens. If your radio show has featured discussion about gays or sexual abuse survivors that could be a reason, too, to mention your experiences and how you’re using your talents to try to help gay people and sexual abuse survivors. Oprah Winfrey, the well known TV personality in the U.S., is a sexual abuse survivor and has used her TV show to inform the public about that issue.</p>
<p>An application needs to highlight what you have to offer a college, and I don’t see how simply being a gay and a sexual abuse survivor provides such info.</p>