<p>Hi guys,</p>
<p>I'm applying to the Plan II honors program at UT this fall, and I'm working on my personal statement right now - the 5 sentences that are supposed to be about different aspects of you and your personality. One of my sentences is about my fandoms (I'm a fangirl who's very active on tumblr) and in that sentence, I talked about three of them: Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter. How appropriate would this be? I didn't state them outright, which is what concerns me; instead, I used references to each of them. For example, for Star Trek, I mentioned the USS Enterprise and Starfleet, for Doctor Who I talked about the 'blue police box' and The Doctor, and for Harry Potter I mentioned Hufflepuff and Quidditch. Would it be a good idea to have this sentence in my personal statement? I'm just worried that the adcom reading my application will have no idea what any of these references are, and that might negatively affect my chances. I really want to include this sentence, because fandoms and tumblr are a HUGE part of who I am, but I'm not sure if it would work for, rather than against, me in this case.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hm. Not sure how I feel about this one. I grew up with multiple fandoms that really helped me flourish as a writer, but there’s often a big social stigma that comes with being a fangirl/fanboy. Though at least one reader would probably understand the Harry Potter references, I think you’re better off stating the fandom outright, and you should probably explain how being in a fandom helped you grow/mature. As long as you can give a tasteful spin to it, mentioning fandoms shouldn’t negatively affect you.</p>
<p>Hmm, yeah. I see what you mean. I’ll try to do that, but if it doesn’t work out, I’m thinking about getting rid of it entirely. I have six sentences right now so I need to narrow it down anyway. I guess this would be a good way of doing it then. Thanks!</p>
<p>No problem to leave it in. BTW, UT-Austin’s muggle Quidditch team won the Quidditch World Cup (VI) this spring in Florida. They know all about it!</p>
<p>I have a question about 5-sentence statement for honor application. They say word count limit is 1,000. I guess that 50 words are even a lot for a sentence. How possible can one sentence be over 100 words? Thanks for your insight.</p>
<p>Is there really no problem leaving it in? Maybe if I PMed some of you my sentence it’d give you a better idea of how subtle my references are and whether or not it would be a good idea to submit it as part of my personal statement.</p>