<p>[url=<a href="http://education.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/the-nine-college-essay-mistakes-not-to-make.html%5DThe">http://education.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/the-nine-college-essay-mistakes-not-to-make.html]The</a> Nine Most Clich</p>
<p>Do people on CC ever run a thread for sharing what topic(s) their kids have chosen, or is that giving away too much?</p>
<p>Thank you! This was very amusing, not to much mention informative.</p>
<p>Sylvan, yes kids do share what they have written, but traditionally they will go onto the exact college forum not in the general areas. They usually create a thread or look at the posts and find a poster who they think could mentor them and then PM them. I have reviewed many essays for a couple of colleges, but they are the schools my children are affiliated with.</p>
<p>I am not sure why many people post on the chances forum. It boggles my mind that people will ask chance me if the colleges exist here. I do know some schools are small and so this is the best option, but when you see someone say chance me for MIT…I have to laugh because the best honest answer you will get is on MIT, not the Chance Me thread.</p>
<p>The funny thing about that link…people here who have asked me to read their essay all hit one of those 9 points. I think a lot has to do with the fact that kids now apply to 10+ colleges, and they are burnt out. They just want to get it done. This issue also becomes apparent since colleges have really pushed up the application deadline. 25 yrs ago when we were in hs, maybe 1 or 2 kids applied EA, there were no EDs. You either applied EA or RD and most of us didn’t finish up all of our apps until @January. It was common place to know that come April 15th our mailboxes would be filled. I don’t any kid now that doesn’t have at least 1 or 2 acceptance letters by Nov., and the rest of their results in Feb.</p>
<p>The system has changed a lot and I am not sure for the better.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing the link. Students should just write about themselves and make sure the essay:</p>
<ul>
<li>makes sense/answers the question</li>
<li>is grammatically correct</li>
<li>has no misspelled words</li>
</ul>
<p>Doesn’t seem like rocket science to me and should not cause so much stress!</p>
<p>Too funny, my S wrote about climbing Mount Whitney. It was actually kind of funny, he talked about his hallucinations from the altitude and how he would never do it again! He concluded he made it to the top by eating a sleeve of fig newtons. Not very inspirational, but amusing. He pointed out to us he had nothing in life to overcome. He always jokes he’s been “living in butter” his whole life.</p>
<p>There’s an interesting thread of U of Chicago essays, but they probably won’t do you much good at other institutions. It’s a variation of the mountaintop essay, but I’ve read a lot of sports essays about perseverance. They aren’t terrible - just a bit boring.</p>
<p>My older son started off with gibberish from computer program that amalgamated exemplary essays he found online. Then went on to say obviously his computer skills needed improving if he was going to have a program do the writing. It was a cute beginning, though the rest of the essay, was merely serviceable. I’d say his approach was “I’m a computer nerd. Take me or leave me.”</p>
<p>My younger son’s main essay was about what he learned from folding origami. His better essay IMO was in response to a question about an EC. He talked about working on the neighborhood association archives and how we had no institutional memory. It was quite funny, but also showed him thinking like an historian. It was funny, because he couldn’t seem to make the topic work as a main essay, but it ended up revealing a lot about himself when it didn’t have the pressure of being The Big Essay.</p>
<p>Being outsider in all this I really don’t understand what kids should write. Ok, some of those things in the article made sense to me. But I have often heard that college application essays should be unique. Something that no one else but that specific kid could have written. To me that is quite an ambitious goal. I mean, we are talking about 17 or 18 year old kids, many middle class, many good students and all around good kids. What can be so special about them and their life? I mean really. I would even go with Tolstoy with this: “All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”</p>
<p>And it is also often said that kids should not write about their sport injuries, death of someone, parental divorce etc. But in reality this may often be the biggest life changing experiences your normal, average high school kid encounters and struggles with. </p>
<p>I mean, my kids are of course very special to me and my husband and to their grandparents and godparents etc. They are smart and good kids. They will hopefully grow up to go to college or get needed job skills otherwise, be good citizens and have a good lives. But it is very difficult for me to see how they could be that unique that they would write a college essay that would be so different that no one else but them could have written it. This may be a cultural thing, but I’m really at a loss on how it would be possible for every Us college applicant to really write an unique and profoundly personal essay (without writing about anything that really are commonly life altering events for high school kids.)</p>
<p>The problem is if a kid is applying to 9 schools (3 ea…reach, match, and safety), they may have to do 20 or more essays, on top of their school work. </p>
<p>Now, I agree it isn’t rocket science, but to some the prompts are so vague that they can’t figure out what to write.</p>
<p>Here are 2 my kids answered:</p>
<p>A. If you could converse with anyone living or deceased, who would it be and what would you ask?</p>
<p>I would think to Newsweek, this would be one of these where many students would say Jesus, Lincoln, Hitler, Einstein, Roosevelt, etc. The true typical answers that easily roll off the child’s mind.</p>
<p>Our DS said Truman and how it felt to drop the 2nd A bomb when Eisenhower felt it was unnecessary.</p>
<p>He pulled that together with the fact it went with his intended major…Govt and International Politics.</p>
<p>It is important that kids tie the essay in the whole package that illustrates a deeper yearning for more knowledge while they question other issues.</p>
<p>I have seen so many essays where kids answer questions like this, and reply scrap it! I did not walk away with any of the following:</p>
<ol>
<li> Wanting to discuss their premise more.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>~~~If you can make the admissions dept read your essay and think to themselves, that is really interesting, I wonder…than you have grabbed their attention and made a mark.</p>
<ol>
<li>Asking myself, and what does this have to do with your intended major?</li>
</ol>
<p>~~~ One wrote an essay about Lincoln and the civil war. His intended major was engineering. I was waiting for him to tell me of some new ammunition created during the war under Lincoln’s direction. Instead, I got an essay reiterating what he learned in APUSH.</p>
<p>I told him to scrap it, and maybe take a different view…look at something that changed the world from an engineering standpoint…for example Henry the 8th, was the first to create trenches and the cannon ball. Both were engineering issues regarding war.</p>
<p>B. Life changing issue.</p>
<p>This is incredibly personal for many kids, but again, they spend so much time discussing the issue, that they miss the point of why it changed them. In the end you read it, but say to yourself, okay I get it you had this life changer in your life, yet I don’t know how that applies to you now as a person. </p>
<p>Many kids believe the essay is never read so they think it is a throw away. They do it for doing it’s sake. They don’t understand the process.</p>
<p>I have seen essays where the school says 250-300 words, but go on for another 100 words. Some admissions dept place the essay through a reader and when it hits the limit they place a line. Go over that and they will never read another word. </p>
<p>Some admission depts use the essay for their honors programs.</p>
<p>Some use it if you are on the cusp.</p>
<p>YET, many kids still believe it is just a part of the BS system to see how high they will jump when asked. That the school is going to throw it in the circular filing cabinet, thus it is a non-player in the admission’s process.</p>
<p>You can make sure that it answers the question, is grammatically correct, including spelling, but that is not the same as bringing insight to admissions about you the student. Colleges want diversity. Colleges want students to bring something to the table for the school besides being book smart. They want diversity, and the essay is the best way to illustrate that point.</p>
<p>The Newsweek piece seemed curiously small-minded to me, at least the part about the “A+ paper”. Lots of people don’t express themselves well in personal essays – and most people will never write another “personal essay” after they apply to college. When they write about things they care about, they express lots of their personality, and communicate lots about themselves. I suspect readers of essays by Thomas Friedman, or Malcolm Gladwell, or Walter Benjamin, or Montaigne, know more about the personalities of the writers than college admissions officers know about their applicants from all those personal-pronoun-laden essays. The Common Application invites kids to write such an essay; I don’t understand why this consultant disses the whole idea.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, I think it is easier than you can imagine.</p>
<p>Our DD had the life essay.</p>
<p>Her father and I are happily married, she is middle class as middle class can be. Her Dad had retired from the military when she was a sophomore in hs. </p>
<p>Her essay was about a jar of dirt she carried around since she was 6. It was my biggest pet peeve with her, because in the military you move every 2-3 yrs, and in some cases every yr. Packing and unpacking a family of 5 with 2 dogs and 1 cat is not fun. A stupid jar of dirt that your 10 yo demands you move can tick you off very fast when you have 20K pounds of household moving. This was always our argument…DD, can I throw this away? NO! An argument always ensued with me saying why do we need a jar of dirt? Her response was always because it’s mine!</p>
<p>I only found out last yr why she fought so adamantly with me about that jar of dirt. Everywhere we lived since she was 6, she would collect a spoonful of dirt right before we left and placed it in the jar.</p>
<p>The essay had nothing to do with our fights, the military moving us every few yrs or actually the dirt, it had everything to do with her intended major. The dirt was not a reminder to her, it was how she saw society. Where you live is different. The dirt in AK is different than NC. or KS or NJ or VA. Yet, they all have something in common…they all grow plants, they all have the same purposes. They are like people, their environment is different, and they mutate to the needs of that environment.</p>
<p>Her major is sociology and psychology. </p>
<p>After, I read that essay, I realized our child had her life moment and none of it had to do with us (Bullet, myself or are family). It had nothing to do with anybody, but her. You’d be amazed how something so trivial is so profoundly unique.</p>
<p>Yes, she took that jar of dirt with her to college. We helped her move in, and I said to her remember school is like that jar of dirt, you will make a mark here.</p>
<p>JHS, not every college is on college aps. Actually the two schools, which are national are not on college apps. I can name at least 5 that my kids applied to, that are not on college apps.</p>
<p>This is not about a bad essay topic, so it may be a digression: My son’s essay for Swarthmore was about rising Hindu fundamentalism in India and it was a good essay, imho. It did get him into Swat. </p>
<p>I noticed, though, that after 6 years, he still thinks in the same firebrand way. He was talking about the recent Ayodhya decision in India (a mosque was razed in Ayodhya, India, to build a temple in 1992 and the court decision came recently) and he railed against the inadequate justice system in India. The decision seemed equitable to me (Muslims did get 1/3 of the land) , but not him. This is 6 years after his essay!!</p>
<p>DS has one underway where he talks about how he likes to read, and how much he likes one author in particular. So much so in fact that at every college we visit we have to find the section of the library with this author’s fiction and see how good the collection is. This has made for some interesting moments. For example at one school the library was just closing when we got there. DS explained his mission, and the librarian, clearly charmed, led us to the proper section of the library so he could examine their collection.</p>
<p>I don’t really know if it’s a worthy topic, but at least it’s not on the list of nine horrible ones. Also a bit hard to see how to tie it to his intended major (philosophy/religious studies).</p>
<p>Bulletandpima: Your daughters dirt jar sounds very insightful and interesting for someone so young to start collecting. And I’m sure the essay was also great.</p>
<p>But I’m not still sure even that is too unique. Idea of the difference and sameness of environment, culture, people etc. is really not something philosophically unique. It may be something even my kids will end up writing about (if they will ever apply to US college) after living in different places and cultures (for our oldest North America is the fifth continent he is living.)</p>
<p>And let’s face it. It’s not required to really have a dirt jar to write about it. I of course don’t know how common it would be a student to decide the theme and make up a life experience that would be a interesting standpoint to the theme. Not something major you could get caught lying about but something plausible (and something no one can check.) But if I would be a college applicant I might well do it so if needed. In fact when high school we often wrote that kind of essays. It was accepted or even encouraged by our teachers: “Write about your best summer day. Had a lousy summer or can’t remember anything? Ok, in that case, make it up.” </p>
<p>But my point really is that while I’m forty something, mother of four, PhD, lived and worked on many countries all over the world, been in many places in interesting times, had my battles, won some, lost some, while I have lived through the some very tough times and some very good, seen a lot, loved a lot, mourned a lot, I still don’t think I have really experienced something totally unique that thousands and millions before me haven’t. So I think it is silly to expect 17 year old kid to be able to write something that would be so uniquely him or her that no one else could write it.</p>
<p>^^^ looks like your son and I will have very different views on that issue! But I’m interested, you would you tie a historical essay to something personal? I mean, historical events rarely happen in the lifetime of the college student so how would you pull that off?</p>
<p>^^ Haha I like your son’s essay, very similar to what I was tempted to write but not going with that now</p>
<p>Also, I have another question: is writing about how a move changed your life very cliche? My move from one country to another did change my personality and my life profoundly but I’m worried this topic might be too cliche</p>
<p>Putturani: If you want to tie an historical event to your life you just have to use the right event. Something that happened far away with no connection to the place you live or your culture is of course something difficult to tie to yourself. </p>
<p>But it is so, that historical events are not just event that were. They are building blocks. Any culture is really a combination of history and environment. Also your family culture, and because of that also you, are fundamentally influenced by events that have happened to your ancestors. Big events in history leave an residue for hundreds of years to come on everything they touched.</p>
<p>Sylvan,</p>
<p>I don’t see that as a hard tie in at all. He enjoys reading, so much so that the library is a factor in his decision making process. Reading has opened doors and ideas. I am sure there is a fictional author that can tie his philosophical or religious readings to regarding the essay. CS Lewis is fictional, but the Chronicles of Narnia have a religious undertone. J.R.R. Tolkien also has philosophical issues.</p>
<p>You can even take the Land Of Oz (aka Wizard of Oz) and use that from a philosophical standpoint…Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Man.</p>
<p>You need to look at the big picture, even in the fictional world of fantasy, you can find philosophy.</p>
<p>Taking something from a black and white issue only will give you the belief you can’t connect. College is about black and white, but gray shades too.</p>
<p>He can take one author, that he found in the racks, a book that he has yet to read and convert that into why finding this book made it him know he will be able to expound upon his philosophy because the school has that ability through their resources. He will be able to give more to the school since he will be able to use their resources in a unique manner.</p>
<p>IMO the essay doesn’t have to be totally unique. With six billion people on the planet it’s tough to come up with something completely unique. But you certainly want to stay away from hackneyed and cliched topics. What it needs to do is convey something important about who you are. </p>
<p>I always tell kids that the essay has two main functions:</p>
<ol>
<li> Tell the committee something important about yourself that they do not already know from reading the rest of the application.</li>
<li> A demonstration of your skill at formal writing.</li>
</ol>
<p>Of these the first is far more important.</p>
<p>D’s friend was telling her about his “find X” essay for University of Chicago…he’s got awesome stats, so he may get in, but I doubt that his essay will help…I bet they get thousand find x essays just like his.</p>
<p>I disagree with the notion that the essay has to somehow relate to the intended major. I think it’s fine if it does, but it certainly is not something to aim for.</p>
<p>I also don’t think there are inherently “bad topics”, a good writer can write a good essay on almost any topic (though it is harder to write a good essay on a topic that has been so overused that adcom is “allergic” to it…).</p>