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<li>A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. </li>
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<p>--I would discuss how I am a first generation immigrant who has lived 7 years in another country and 10 in the US. I can also include the hardships I faced dealing with a severely mentally ill sibling and the valuable life lessons I learned (which I intend to disseminate to others).</p>
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<li>Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.</li>
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<p>--I would discuss the civil war in Sri Lanka. I actually am part of the ethnicity that is fighting against the sri lankan government. These people are labelled as terrorists and I had to discover early on that what we label people is often misleading propaganda and that there is always a rational argument as to why the "other side" behaves the way it does. </p>
<p>help me decide which would possibly be more of an impact on the adcoms. I thought sob stories about your life are generally discouraged since people have used it as a cheap way of getting into a selective college. These stories can also be made up whereas my essay idea #2 is an event that is clearly documented. Everyone has hardships in their life that they face and I don't want to come off as "oh poor me". As a note, I will try my best to not make it seem like self-pity.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot CC. I know I have been asking a lot of questions on these boards but I promise to come back in a few months when I have gone through the college process. When I have insights of my own, I'll be sure to dispense them out to the next batch of kids on the CC forums.</p>