<p>Well then, if you didn't actually read it, you had some other way of finding out what she wrote about! </p>
<p>Socks? cool.</p>
<p>^ lol I'll bet that was the roommate essay. But this is precisely what the schools want to see, a real person, a bit of personality shining through, what makes them tick...both in these shorter essays and as well as in the main one.</p>
<p>CS, it was after the fact, she read it to me after she got a hand written note from the admission officier praising her essay.</p>
<p>Sequoia, it was her roommate one. She wrote it in a funny way but truely showing who she is.</p>
<p>Regardless of your daughter's topic...the essay really should be her subject choice. It has to come from her, be written in HER voice, and be something she can write about clearly. The subjects on the common ap and the college applications are somewhat general...most topics will fit. Agreed that the essay needs to be well done. The topic isn't as important as how the essay is put together.</p>
<p>Both of my kids started a word document the summer before their senior year. They wrote lots of ideas in that document...some more developed than others. In the end, they were able to use these ideas to formulate their essays.</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter, and she is wise to get a leg up on this during the summer.</p>
<p>I think its okay to write about her dad staying sober, if that's what she wants. Some of the things people in AA are supposed to do are very interesting. Dead grandma stories are cliche, but if a parent or sibling died during high school, that could be such an overwhelming part of the applicant's story that it should be told.</p>
<p>ChiSquare, I would really suggest that you get a copy of the book by Harry Bauld "On Writing the College Application Essay" and then just leave it somewhere in the house where your kid is sure to see it. I think it does a great job of getting the message across about what is expected, and I also think it helped get my daughter's creative juices flowing.</p>
<p>One more thing -- if it was your idea as the parent to write about the experience... it might be a particularly bad idea. One thing I have learned now that my kids are adults (ages 20 & 25) is that they are not the people I thought they were in high school. As a parent, I saw their lives through the lens of my own shared experiences with them, but I didn't really see their inner beings -- how they responded to what was around them, how they felt -- or who they would become once they were no longer living in the environment I provided. So what I saw as most important -- for example, the things I might have listed as the 5 most significant events of their lives -- weren't necessarily the same things that were important to them. For example: my divorce from their father. To me: big deal. To them it was almost insignificant, an external event of their lives that they didn't see as having much impact on their own lives.</p>
<p>Mathson didn't write great essays, but it was helpful just to try out a couple of different topics until one clicked. So she might well try writing about the drinking problem, but be prepared to try some other essays too.</p>
<p>Re: that Stanford Roomate essay. My kid hated that one. I think the essays really did in his Stanford application.</p>
<p>Stanford Roommate essay - my son wrote about buying things and selling them on ebay.</p>
<p>The hardest one to write was the "Why Stanford?" essay.</p>
<p>Son also got a handwritten note re: his main essay.</p>