Quite honestly guys, I think I need a bit more creativity in my college admission essays, but I don’t know if these topics are off-limits or not. Basically, I want to get into a top LAC like W&L, William and Mary, etc.
a couple of ideas:
Who would win in a fight, samurai or ninjas? Or maybe other groups like unarmed Germanic Barbarians (I’m referring to the ones that the Romans defeated, I’m not saying that Germans are barbarians) v. aikido masters
The importance of high-calorie foods like donuts and chips in daily life.
Or do college essays have to be about myself?
I am dead serious on this question
Thanks for the input!
<p>It's fine to creative when writing the essays but don't let your creativity get carried away. Stick to the prompt and absolutely make sure the essay is as focused as possible. </p>
<p>The essays do have to reveal something about you. When the adcoms read the esssay, they should have a clear understanding of who you are. Writing some off-topic essay about ninjas and kung fu is not the way to go. You can try to weave in some humor or a couple of bizarre analogies comparing your life to the lives of Samurai warriors but they should not be the main focus of your essay. Your essay is where you make yourself shine. Write sincerely and honestly. </p>
<p>I do understand your dilemma in wanting to stand out as much as possible by writing an essay on a creative topic. But if it doesn't relate to you, then it's not worth writing about.</p>
<p>Basically, by writing an average essay, you'll get the average grade assigned by the adcom. Writing something creative like that will either earn you big points or doom you. :)</p>
<p>My advice? Write conventional essays to all the colleges you consider matches and safeties, mainly to avoid rocking the boat too much if your already in. For reaches and high reaches, you may want try do something completely out of the ordinary to attract attention and give you the swing points you may need. Good luck.</p>
<p>I agree with the concept of risk attached to being too creative. However, the topics you suggested don't seem to satisfy the basic requirement that the essay be about you somehow. The essay is not a writing contest. It has to show something about you.</p>
<p>How about you take an average subject, and write well? Those are the most successful essays. Don't try to dazzle them with some odd situation like fights between ninjas and samurais, that will most likely not work. Tell them about yourself in a way that is lively and interesting. Maybe you could use a creative way to describe yourself.</p>
<p>You don't HAVE to write about yourself. I know two people, one who just got into Cornell and another who was accepted to U of M, who wrote essays that were a little out there, as well. I wouldn't suggest using the "who would win in a fight" thing, though. Use your creativity (colleges like that), but don't get TOO crazy!</p>
<p>Even if you don't ever mention yourself, these essays are supposed to be about you, and your ideas while very creative and interesting, seem risky for risky's sake.</p>
<p>Celebrian25 ...go to the Univ of chicago web site and look at their essay questions this year. they are provocative but not ridiculous. I wouldn't get any more "out there" than those type of questions. remember it's not the question...it's the response....your essay.</p>
<p>i agree. I've read their questions (just for fun actually :p) I think when you get to a certian point of "being out there" the adcoms know you're just trying to impress, which isn't going to impress them at all</p>
<p>oops Celebrian25 ...i thought you were the original poster.(I remembered the capital C) This comment was particularly for College Here i Come... I applied to Chicago last year and I did have fun writing the essay. and since I applied early decision what i learned from writing that essay I was able to apply to my other essays in December, which were conventional questions ...but i think I was able to put a distinct spin on the response. Actually the most provocative question was offerred by my "safety" school: If you could become any person, past or present, for one year who would you be, what would you do, and why?</p>
<p>It's okay to be original, but please don't be cliche original. The samurai/ninja thing is very....current anime craze. And being totally, totally crazy is just predictible. The audience just knows that your next word will be something unexpected, so they expect that.</p>
<p>I think you'd stand out more by doing something crazy, but writing it as if you're perfectly sane, not wild. Or you could take something normal and write it like you're crazy. I kind of did both at once and got a Sylvia Plath thing going (that's what someone else told me, at least).</p>
<p>The prompt when I applied was something like "Write about something that has influenced your life such as a hardship you had to overcome, or an experience that has tought you valuable life skills"... (pretty typical prompt)</p>
<p>my ex boyfriend wrote about playing D & D, and how playing that role-play game has affected his life. He got rejected from his top choices - Berkeley, UCLA, etc..</p>
<p>I wrote about an experience I had while volunteering at the hospital that involved a paralyzed teenager. I got accepted to all the schools he got rejected from.. and we both had similar gpa's and extracurriculars - only his SAT scores were much higher than mine.</p>
<p>(something to think about before you go super creative)</p>
<p>"Write about something that has influenced your life such as a hardship you had to overcome, or an experience that has tought you valuable life skills"</p>
<p>I have had Erbs palsy since birth ( its basically restricted mobility of my right arm ) and have been doin physical therapy for it all my life. In my opinion, it has allowed me to look at life more deeply and realize that life is full of obstacles which one must overcome ( im not bs'ingg :p .. thats truly how I feel ) and that I am better off when compared to people who have no legs or arms for that matter or those who are starving to death. I have a cousin sister ( whom i lived with since i was in a joint family ) who was a Cerebral Palsy patient and she was always laughin and smiling which reenforced the point that I should be grateful for what I have... However, if I write an essay on this problem that I faced and how it has made me feel for the abovementioned prompt, would the adcoms think that i'm self-pitying myself ? Do you guys think that I should write about something else as opposed to this because its more negative than positive?</p>
<p>jai - in my opinion, that sounds like something that could be a real powerful essay and it wouldn't be 'pittying yourself' because the way you talked about it makes it sound like your disability has empowered you.</p>
<p>At the time I wrote my essay, I had to think hard before I came up with an idea of what to write about because my life was rather uneventful, and even then I had to dramatise it a little bit just to make it longer than a paragraph and more interesting.</p>