<p>So one of the Common App essay questions is:</p>
<p>"Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?"</p>
<p>Personally, I hear the question and my mind jumps to religion. I am an atheist. I was wondering if writing about a time I decided to "challenge a belief" (aka reject Christianity) is a flat-out bad move. I know they always say "religion and politics" are the two topics you should avoid in "polite" conversation, but I'm wondering if this rule applies to college essays as well. </p>
<p>So, should I go for it? Or pick a different topic?</p>
<p>What specifically would this essay involve? </p>
<p>If you write about how you go around criticizing people’s religious beliefs without prompting, that would make you look bad. (I’m an atheist, and I think it’s weird that you view atheism as “rejecting Christianity” specifically rather than as simply not believing in a deity. Do you just mean that you were a Christian before and you de-converted?) </p>
<p>If it doesn’t make you look bigoted or close-minded, it might be okay…but it’s still sort of iffy. After you write it, get some moderate religious people to tell you what they think.</p>
<p>If your goal is admission, stick to polite conversation. I wouldn’t put a lot of energy into a topic likely to offend if it goes on all your common app schools. If you still think it works, follow halcyonheathers advice.</p>
<p>I think this will be a difficult topic to write in a positive way that shows you in a positive light. You can’t write about how you decided that the religious beliefs of others are a bunch of nonsense. You could possibly write about how difficult it was for you to step away from the beliefs that supported you in your youth–but I still think it’s going to be hard to write in an entirely positive way. I think this essay prompt is best used for a situation in which you overcame a negative belief–and portraying religion as a negative belief is probably not the best approach.</p>
<p>It’s not a taboo subject, religion. However, I think this will not be a unique subject. I wonder if you have anything truly interesting to say on the topic. Heather makes good points.</p>
<p>I think the subject could make a fine essay provided you stick to your personal struggle and how it affected you in relation to your community, school, family, etc. – your personal journey of self-discovery and truth-seeking, the challenge of “coming out of the closet” to your family and friends, resisting peer pressure, incidents of discrimination that you have suffered as a result of your reality-based world view, etc. Show your strength of character and try not to come off as “preachy” and condescending. Good luck (and congrats!)</p>
<p>Thank you for all of the opinions! @halcyonheather, I didn’t mean to define atheism as “rejecting Christianity”; Christianity has just been a prevalent topic amongst my family and (especially) my community. And for me, I associate “rejecting Christianity” with deciding my own beliefs (as DGDzDad said, a “personal journey of self-discovery and truth-seeking”). </p>
<p>Everyone seems to have pretty different opinions on what I should do…the trickiest part about writing this, I suppose, will be to avoid causing anyone offense.</p>
<p>Not even that, really. I think the things that make it difficult to write the proposed essay well are (1) the need to refrain from belittling religion while making the case for atheism, and (2) the fact that the story you have just lived quite personally and, I presume, intensely is actually not new at all to readers who are 10 or 30 or 50 years older than you are.</p>
<p>OP does not have to “make the case for atheism.” The point of the essay would be for OP to show how being a minority challenging a belief held by a majority of the community affected OP personally and how OP handled it.</p>
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<p>The same could be said for probably 80% of college application essays.</p>
<p>The issue is that religion is a controversial subject. Some people just feel defensive when an essay talks about challenging a belief they hold, no matter how inoffensive you tried to be. I think it’s important to show that you’re open-minded and that you’ve really thought about this stuff. Don’t be condescending, and don’t act like you have all the answers.</p>
<p>Colleges (ostensibly) try to create intellectual diversity, and I think a college education should force you to examine at least some of your views even if you get offended at times, so it seems kind of weird to me that talking about religion would be completely off-limits in a college essay. But it does need to be done carefully.</p>
<p>What did you challenge? Did you were in the middle of some people and challenge them who want to kill others who don’t want to perceive the same believe?</p>
<p>Perhaps the point shouldn’t be that you went from Christianity to athiesm. Maybe it should be you changed your beliefs (without labeling what you were and what you are now). You can talk about the struggle, the conflict in breaking away from what you grew up with, the necessity to respect others’ religious beliefs yet be true to your own developing thoughts … Without identifying the religion you’re leaving or going to. It may be awkward and perhaps it’s unworkable, but I think it’s your best shot.</p>
<p>Religion is not a no-no. The problem is in how the typical 17 year old writes about it. There you have adcoms looking for your curiosity, open mindedness and flexibility- and kids can come across as too all-fired certain, done questioning and finished exploring. It backfires. They know a young person is not fully formed and should be continuing to evolve. Same goes for politics. Or social commentary. </p>
<p>This isn’t just a topic and an assignment to take a stand. And remember, “show, not tell.”</p>
<p>kitkat: you’ve been given advice on how not to appear. What happens if some of the advice runs against what you really believe? What if when someone warns you of the dangers of looking inflexible, too-certain, causing offense and bigoted but*** yet these are the attitudes you possess***? We don’t know you and should not judge you. That’s for you to determine. Even the bigoted, close-minded and offensive people refuse to characterize themselves in this way and desire to be admitted to competitive colleges.</p>
<p>Either abandon the topic or state it boldly and let them admit/reject you for who you really are.</p>
<p>Couldn’t you say that about a lot of the introspection people do in college essays, though? They’re sort of asking you to make a statement about who you are, even though most teenagers aren’t any one thing for very long.</p>
<p>"Most college essays have nothing to do with the college application. "</p>
<p>They are. You write about DOING things. I fought with self mentally to reach a decision that I don’t believe in god is not doing much. I worked in soup kitchen, I collected toys for kids with cancer, I started a quidditch club, I cured cancer are the things that tell an adcom what you might do at their college.</p>
<p>We are not Catholic, or even very religious, but my son attends a Catholic school. I thought he wrote a very thoughtful essay about originally feeling out of place at his school, but eventually getting to a place where he was grateful for many elements of a Catholic education that he would not have experienced in another school setting. He had several specific examples.</p>