What do you guys think? I was pretty lucky with the whole corona thing because I wasn’t too negatively impacted by it, and actually was able to get a fair bit of personal development from all the free time. (Specifically, I filed a provisional patent and started a business under which to license that patent, and did some virtual immersion to learn German.) Would AOs not appreciate it if I talked about that in the COVID essay or should I talk about it there. If I should talk about it there, what advice do you guys have as to how to handle it tactfully?
Personally, I would not talk about COVID. It is completely fine if you want to, but I think so many people are going to talk about how they found a passion during COVID, started this, blah blah blah, and I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with that (it’s great, actually), but imagine the admissions officers. They’ll have spent hours reading essays about similar topics already. Now, that being said, if you talk about a passion which isn’t something that you would put on your ECs, I think that would be good. For example, if you learned cooking while at home during COVID and have a funny story to tell about it, by all means, go ahead! I think that would be a fantastic essay!
It’s just that I personally wouldn’t merge my ECs into my essay because the goal is to express yourself, not to show your achievements. In the EC spots, you should have a bit to write about each one, so you can explain your provisional patent and business there.
Remember always that the purpose of the college essay is to: 1) tell admissions officers something about yourself that can’t be found elsewhere on the application and 2) give admissions officers a reason to want you on campus.
I think your topic could be fine. Start writing a draft or an outline and see where it goes.
And FWIW my S briefly mentioned a major EC into his essay (it fit in seamlessly) and it worked out just fine.