<p>How many of you wrote about a big personal problem in an admissions essay? As in death of a family member, disorders, addictions, huge life shattering events that altered everything you knew. Someone was talking about this today at my school, and said someone else got into a UC (not stating which one) because they talked about a dead parent, as opposed another classmate who had better SAT scores, grades, and same major, but just wrote about a random topic (I think it was about a club they founded). I also got rejected from the same school, but I'm wondering if I should have written an essay like that now, because certain circumstances did affect my academics. Do you think it would have made a big difference?</p>
<p>I think the fact that they showed their personality instead of just restating their involvement in a random club is what made the difference. The student who got in picked a topic that allowed them to put themself into the essay. The same could have been done with virtually any topic, and colleges basically want to see how well you organize your thoughts in writing as well as other aspects of your personality that were not otherwise revealed.</p>
<p>Your classmate that got in did not do so simply because of their topic, it was the writing and the passion that got them in. Do not think that someone got in simply because they had a dead parent and chose to use this to their advantage. That's just not true.</p>
<p>I agree with Robotab - topic alone won't make your essay good. It's all about how you approach to subject and relate it to your personal qualities and how your qualities make you a promising applicant. </p>
<p>Although, adcoms will tell you that they get their share of essays about the difficulties of handling death, divorce, the suicide of a loved one, etc. It's probably much easier to speak about these topics and make it feel sincere, but there's a fine line between frank and depressing when it comes to topics like this. Although it's important to discuss these topics if it has adversely affected your academics, these topics are best to be avoided because you don't want to come off as overly broody in your essays. The classmate who got in and talked about the dead parent must have struck the right balance between poise and maturity in his/her essay, and must have explained with the right amount of justification how it influence his/her performance in school (which is difficult to do!). </p>
<p>I'm not sure if writing about one of those depression/death/divorce topics would have made a big difference (depends on the UC, I suppose), but writing about a big personal problem is a difficult subject just because many many many people do that already.</p>