Topic of your Choice

Applying to College
1

I saw that a thread was made earlier about the Common App Topic of your choice. However, that thread dealt with using a topic from another college as the Topic of Your Choice.

I am applying to Muhlenberg College ED, and rather than using the 5 topics in the Common App, I’d like to use my own topic. It would be something like “What is one thing that you value the most in life.” I want to talk about how happiness is important to survive through life. How my own perception of happiness changed from childhood to adulthood (it went from adventures and things to superficial things like clothes and cars). visiting the earthquake devasted portion of turkey (the country where my parents are from) showed me that even without expensive cars and such people can be happy. And I’ve learned that its this happiness that guides people throughout even the toughest times in life.

what do u think? please help.

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<p>sounds cliche and contrived, that's just my opinion. that's not to say that your essay won't be great if you do an exceptional job with it.</p>

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<p>i'd say you have to be really careful about the way you present it to avoid writing a cliche essay. lots of people have done those "visiting another place where people are less fortunate than me made me appreciate...". maybe it would be better to just mention that experience and focus on how your perception of happiness has changed.</p>

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<p>yeah i understand, thats why i didnt want to choose the "significant experience" essay. i dont want to make it look like an epiphany. i am thinking of focusing more on the "value" of happiness and not on the visit to turkey. thats why i want to make my own topic and not their topics, do u think a school would mind if i used my own original topic</p>

5

<p>I wrote about potatoes if that helps.</p>

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<p>not really, thanks anyway though</p>

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<p>bummmmmmmmmmp</p>

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<p>Does Muhlenberg take the common app? If so, one of the options is write about whatever you want. If not, then post the essay question, so we can evaluate.</p>

<p>Btw, one of my friends wrote an essay starting with the lines, "All over the world there are needy people, more than we could ever help, yet helping that one person meant so much to me..." It went downhill from there. It sounds like you are trying to put a different angle on a cliched topic, which is good, because let me tell you, reading the ones like that one is just painful.</p>