<p>What do admission officers want to see in the essays? (Other than being a good writer in general) </p>
<p>Do they look a lot into creativity? Or mental development? (I feel that most of the prompts for the essays require "deep thoughts" about life) What else?</p>
<p>Regarding creativity, last year my daughter wrote one essay for a very selective school as a long-form poem and was admitted. I was nervous when my wife told me she was attempting that, but changed my mind when I read it. So I’d say that the right amount of creativity can’t hurt.</p>
<p>I suspect that that poem was a welcome relief from the usual, Seven Dad.</p>
<p>Whatever you do, my advice is, be concrete. Sometimes teens can get a little airy-fairy in their musings…don’t forget to ground those deep thoughts in your real life experiences.</p>
<p>I think mental development is really important in writing admissions essays but it really shouldn’t be that different from the writing sample the schools probably already have from you. If the essay is drastically different, they will think your parents wrote it for you.
Good luck.</p>