<p>I'm not even applying (no way I'd get in and I like the cold lol), so this is probably weird buttt....</p>
<p>I was wondering what were the topics of your essays? (Letter to R and Intellectual Vitality)
I was reading the chance boards and some of them seem really compelling/interesting... If you don't mind posting the topics, it'd be cool too see a list of the different ones. (Just topics, that's all).</p>
<p>My letter to roommate was about my community service and the different perspectives on what I did - it was iike telling a story three different ways. My intellectual vitality one was about breathing.</p>
<p>My letter to a roommate was about my childhood in Uganda and about the day's my father came home from Rwanda. It centered on a story he told me about a camp and how it affects to me to this day.</p>
<p>My intellectual vitality essay was about the day following the 2008 State of the Union and how a small debate that day has turned into a weekly affair that has helped me shape my perception on the world.</p>
<p>did the roommate essay ever ask to write a letter? i know this is off topic, btu im just wondering.</p>
<p>i didn't write a letter.. i wrote a short essay on myself</p>
<p>it's not a letter this year.</p>
<p>It wasn't a letter. It simply asked you: "What would you want your freshman roommate to know about you? Tell us something about you that will help your roommate -- and us -- know you better."</p>
<p>I wrote an essay about myself; it wasn't a letter.</p>
<p>I did it in letter format, which I don't see as a real problem since you're addressing(at least pretending to) your roommate.</p>
<p>For the Intellectual vitality, I talked about me breaking out of my classical music shell and getting into Celtic/Irish fiddling, and the various challenges that I encountered.</p>
<p>As for the roommate one, I was pretty forward with that one. I just talked about activities I like to do, like watching movies and playing card games, as well as my desire to get out into the Stanford community and meet new people.</p>
<p>my roommate one was kind of in the form of a letter, but it was more as if i were talking to her. it was (in simplest terms) about how weird i am. a little difficult to explain the whole premise of it w/o posting the whole essay...</p>
<p>my intellectual vitality was about my obsession with intercultural interaction (being biracial and bicultural) and how it's impacted the way i see things and what i want to do with my life.</p>
<p>yeah my essays pretty much sucked. :) i wrote all three in about one hour before midnight, haha. </p>
<p>oh well.</p>
<p>^HOLY COW that's intense.</p>
<p>I wrote my common app (main essay) when I had 4 hours to go before leaving on my State trip (I got back after the deadline so in effect I only had those 4 hours). </p>
<p>It probably explains why people feel that my essay's main weakness is its conclusion. I was in a hurry at that point :P</p>
<p>Commonapp - Coaching a middle school traveling baseball team
Intellectual Vitality - Visiting UW-Madison with my mom
Roommate Letter - Running cross country and how it has affected me</p>
<p>Intellectual Vitality -- My love of competitive games and my pro-tactics mindset during them. </p>
<p>Roommate Letter -- How I love staying up during the dark hours of the morning.</p>
<p>Common App- I related walking through the Kibera slum in Kenya to walking through the halls of my suburban high school and how my trip to Kenya affected my view of diversity.</p>
<p>Intellectual Vitality- I talked about our perceptions of color and how we may all see them differently, but because they are so well organized we never know and related it to the struggle for world peace.</p>
<p>Roommate- I talked about how I had a childhood obsession with car keys and how it shifted to piano keys and eventually to computer keys. I related it by saying that as my roommate you can always count on me to lend you my key if you need it. Finally, talked about how we're all in the search for the key to success and that my search has lead me to Stanford where I am confident I could unlock countless doors of opportunity.</p>
<p>^^ the roommate essay idea is so cliched :-)</p>