<p>I was wondering if it's okay to talk about your present or past financial situation if it profoundly affected you. I'm not really quite open about mine to the public forums, but if it really did affect me as a person, would it be fine to write about it? What about other stuff? Like how I used to be... William Taft... And I'm now a role model for my friends to stay fit ;)... Guns, hehe. I'm going paranoid, haha! Worrying about college essays as a sophomore :P...</p>
<p>It could be fine if approached properly. But be careful, I’ve read many such essays and none of them handled the financial issue well. I think its safer to avoid the issue.</p>
<p>My friend wrote “sob stories” (her words, not mine) about her past for both her CA essay and Yale Supp (even though she is doing really good now) and she got accepted. So it could work.</p>
<p>Sometimes “risky” essays work; sometimes they don’t. You don’t know who will be assessing them. You can get some gauge by meeting your regional admissions officer. But there is an element of luck in choosing an essay. Plus using the same essay for however many schools can mean it bombs at some and maybe, maybe goes over well at some. </p>
<p>Some free spirits write what they think and that’s it, “daamn the torpedos” is the attitude and those, IMO, have the best chance of carrying off the quirky, the sensitive the controversial essays. When you are hedging and wondering it it “will work” , I think some that can show.</p>
<p>If you think you have some great essays that are bordering on dangers subjects, I suggest mixing the into the batch of schools, and make sure you don’t use it for all of them. </p>
<p>I truly don’t see the impact of essays as I’ve seen kids accepted with the most hackneyed stuff to the best schools. Bleary eyed admisision directors reading their 10 thousandth essay are not always in the position to hone the fine points of them. As long as an essay doesn’t stand out as really poorly written or considered offensive by the reader, or painfully bad, I don’t think it’s something that is a big deal factor in admissions. I cannot begin to tell you how boring some essays were of kids who got into HPY.</p>