<p>Alright so MIT and U of M both have a community/your world essay topic (I'm sure other colleges probably do, too). Both suggest family/community/race, etc. for topics. I was wondering...is it risky to write essays about heritage ex. something along the lines of having influences from two markedly different continents? Also, is this cliche for especially Asian applicants?</p>
<p>Could students who have applied in the past and had success with these colleges and their essay topics (especially with MIT's application process) perhaps share their experiences?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance! :)</p>
<p>A shameless bump before this disappears off of the first page…</p>
<p>I’m not a student at either school, but I think it is pretty common to write about having influences from two different continents. This is an especially common topic, not necessarily from Asians, but from a lot of first-generation immigrants who write about the culture of their home country vs. that of the US. </p>
<p>That being said, it could be common or cliched enough to be risky, but it can still be done well (although it will be a lot harder to do so). Just remember to focus on how your community / world <em>influenced</em> who you are, your interests, passions, career interests, etc. </p>
<p>Thank you @OnMyWay2013! I’ll definitely keep that in mind. Does anyone else have some suggestions?</p>
<p>I’m writing something similar for UMich. I think it’s only as cliche as you make it. A typical story about heritage struggles and how it’s made you “such a great citizen” is cliche. You need to stand out, for instance, I’ll be exploring WHY it’s hard to live between cultures by examining traits of each. Not that it’s good to write an anthropological thesis about ur heritage but top colleges want people who can think critically about their everyday lives.</p>
<p>So I checked my daughter’s application to U of Michigan. She was accepted to Engineering with Computer Science major. She wrote about being in a hair saloon where I used to take her for hair cut and such. She described her experience there with different language than English and how the TV channels blasting foreign language songs, etc… I think she also expressed somewhere she likes to learn languages. Interesting enough, she has to learn lots of computer language for CS.</p>
<p>Okay thank you for the advice @alsa2000 and @DrGoogle! I’ll keep these tips in mind for the MIT essay as well. </p>