<p>So, I'm assuming all the people who didn't like this essay wrote their own on the profound, life-changing effect of volunteering at a soup kitchen/scoring the winning goal/overcoming odds that were previously thought to be insurmountable?</p>
<p>Snore.</p>
<p>It's called "creativity," people. This board frustrates me intensely. I see so many essays that make me want to crawl into bed and hide under the covers getting comments like "awesomely deep!" or "you're totally into Harvard with that," while the one or two essays that were legitimately interesting are ragged on as, horror of horrors, "too risky."</p>
<p>Good lord, don't be so terrified to take chances. The essay in this post is an absolutely perfect example of the "show, don't tell" adage that is repeated ad nauseum on this board. He didn't have to tell you that he enjoyed writing, or that he had an active imagination, or that he had interests in a variety of subjects by using some tired anecdote; his style and delivery painted made that very obvious without being incredibly hackneyed and dull.</p>
<p>In short, get over yourselves. Yes, numbers are important, no one here is discounting the importance of test scores, gpa, or class rank. But please, please don't try to apply equations to your personal statement. Adcoms are all familiar with the concept of Personal Adversity+Perseverance=Life Lesson, and unless you figure out a way to spin it in a clever or profound way, it's just going to sound cliched and boring. </p>
<p>Personally, I'd rather be accepted into a school for having a brilliant personal statement that outweighs some of the weaknesses on my transcript, rather than being accepted simply for putting up good numbers. Would I have gotten into Harvard? Probably not, but I still got into a few great schools. But that's just my two cents.</p>