I’m helping my little brother with common app essay ideas because we’re bored in quarantine. I think we came up with an Idea that has some real potential and I wanted to see what people thought. Keep in mind this is a rough idea and very open to changes/critiques.
So the main idea of the essay is that he was always the “underdog” in the sense that he grew up with zero expectations of high achievement. He was developmentally delayed physically and went through years of PT/OT, diagnosed learning disabiliities, the whole 9 yards. Due to this my parents, while supportive, never put pressure on him to perform at a high level and just wanted him to be happy and do his best.
Despite this, He has consistently had a 3.8-4.0 in High School taking Honors and AP classes, out working everyone around him, and its really quite remarkable. He was also scoring around a 27 on practice ACT’s (32-34 on english and reading, but bombing math which is his biggest struggle). I think with more prep he can easily crack the 30’s, but COVID has all of the ACT stuff up in the air.