<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>so I've been reading a lot on here about writing about your passion in your common app essay. What I'm wondering is whether its necessary to do this--or could you talk about something completely different that reveals your characteristics instead. Which would be better?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>I’m wondering this as well–my Common App essay focuses mainly on my personal qualities like curiousity/insatiable desire to learn (I know, pretty rare for an applicant to top schools lol), with some mentions of my ECs. But I wonder if it may be worth it to present a more cohesive picture of my ECs as well, detailing my accomplishment with specific anecdotes.</p>
<p>You can write about something other than your extra-curricular activities. </p>
<p>Actually, simply rehashing your extra-curricular activities could be quite a boring essay. Admissions officers already have a list of those extra-curriculars, so if you’re going to write about them, you better add something special about them.</p>
<p>What you want to do is set yourself apart from other applicants. Be memorable. If you participate in some type of activity most students your age don’t participate in, writing about that is a good idea. If not, something else might be in order.</p>
<p>But there’s a difference between a laundry list and elaborating on an extracurricular. What I’m asking, and what I think the OP is asking, is whether fleshing out an EC or discussing more general personality attributes (albeit in a specific, anecdotal essay) is a better route to take.</p>
<p>There’s one mandatory 150 word essay on an EC. But the other essay can be about literally ANYTHING.</p>
<p>BUMP please?</p>
<p>ME TOO. : ) My thinking was that admissions ppl always say they want to know who you are as a person. And I felt I could communicate that better by communicating personality, characteristics, with a little about interests, rather than exploration of an EC. What do other people think about this?</p>
<p>OMG I was having the exactly same question too. My opinion is that you don’t HAVE to have your common app main essay talking about EC passion. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>I think that your essay should tell the admissions officer about YOU, and what is important to YOU. If one of your EC’s is something that you care about, and you feel you could write a well written essay that expresses who YOU are, then you should write about that. If you feel that there is something else in your life that shows your personality better, then you should write about that instead.
I wouldn’t try just listing off personal characteristics though, instead you could try finding something symbolic that represents who you are, and then explain the symbolism between that item and yourself. It doesn’t even have to be something too incredibly complicated. It could be the bookshelf in your room, the type of shampoo you use, your favorite food… the main idea is that it should be unique and completely YOU. An admissions officer doesn’t want to read the same essay thousands of times, so write from your heart, that way you know nobody out there will be writing the same thing.</p>
<p>there’s absolutely no need to write about an EC. the goals are to describe things about yourself that aren’t obvious from other sections of your application and to show a little bit about how you write, how you think, who you are as a person. Mine’s about laundry. I use an experience to show my personality and my interests.</p>
<p>Should the common app and the supp essay about the same theme but different ideas and styles ? I decide to write 2 essays on one theme ( about internship in a factory), one about what I did there to reveal my personality, one about the flaw in management of that factory? Should essays be different in topics? Should I write about the flaws in that factory and that shape my career goal and way of thinking (actually my father’s factory)</p>
<p>deerspectacles: I once thought of the possibility of writing a metaphoric essay but is it boring because it is hard to use descriptive language in a metaphoric essay? I am not good at describing things and only by writing about things like what I did can I use vivid description. (I had my draft about a Chinese chess piece : a pawn but it just symbolizes what I think and I did in general but not in details because I just have 500 words in the common app right? And to say it again, I am an international student so not very good at writing a descriptive piece. Should I continue writing this if the description is not good anough? )</p>
<p>Does it HAVE to be about EC passions? Absolutely not. Can it be and is it a hot topic? Of course. It makes it an easy subject to write about for some people as they can relate to it on a personal level and hey, it might just be easier to write about something you attend to frequently.</p>
<p>Is it better not to write about ECs then? I’ve been reading a couple college essay books and very rarely do you see one about ECs. Most of them are about life experiences or are really metaphoric.</p>