I keep reading about articles saying to take at least one risk at one of your four essay prompts and make that writing piece “stand out”. And i did for two/four essays with some dialogue in the beginning (not about myself, but some fun creative fantasy dialogue that explains my point and the main idea of what I’m going to say after the dialogue. Should I cut out the dialogue and add facts or just keep SOME of it?
Take what those articles say with a grain of salt. There is a point at which creative writing can easily become disorganized, confusing, cliched, or downright cringe-inducing. Too many students who follow those articles aren’t naturally creative writers and don’t understand the nuance it takes to write an enlightening “stand-out” kind of essay. For the record, you can make your essay stand out just by having a good story and articulating yourself clearly and thoughtfully.
When you say “facts,” I assume that you’re asking whether your essay should include information about yourself. If so, then the answer is definitely. The college application essays are about showing colleges why they should admit you. Period. If your intent to highlight your creativity falls flat, and the essay says nothing else about you, then you’ve just wasted that space. So definitely experiment with dialogue and storytelling if you want to. Just don’t forget the point of the essay, and make sure you get some feedback before you submit it.