shopping for her clothes at the Good Will
What did your child write about in his/her college essay? College Reps had some...interesting essays
My son wrote about FIRST Robotics, which he was involved in all through high school, and what it meant to him. It wasn’t clever or creative, just relating an experience that had been a huge part of his life.
I remembered he discussed the FIRST concept of “gracious professionalism” and how he took it to mean good sportsmanship, such as helping out competing teams with parts and repairs. Then at dinner after a competition, he overheard the team captain compliment an overworked server who wasn’t doing a good job. He asked her why she had done so and she replied, “Those may be the only kind words he hears today.” This taught him what gracious professionalism truly was.
Essays were only important to a few schools he applied to (UCLA, Berkeley, USC and maybe UCSD) and he got into all of them. We were really relieved because he had not enjoyed doing the essay portion of the application. He has high math/science skills, great technical writing skills, but creative writing - not so much.
DS wrote about his Odyssey of the Mind team, and risk taking. The team decided to do something crazy and do their project with $0 cost on their cost form. The teams are usually allowed to use around $125 in materials, but this includes EVERYTHING…used stuff they get for free still has to count for their “garage sale” value. Paint has value. So does tape.
So to be able to say they spent $0, the team had to create the costumes and sets for a play using only items that count as total trash. DS wrote about the engineering aspect of it: how to attach things to each other if you’ve chosen to not use tape, string, staples, glue, nails??? They ended up making “twine” out of old plastic bags, “tape” from the edges of stickers that you’d throw away, and – get this – “glue” made of boiled gum that they’d scraped off the cafeteria tables at school. The essay talked about how gross it was, but how fun, to force yourself to such extremes for the sake of creativity.
They didn’t move on to states that year but they won a Ranatra Fusca (a prestigious award for extreme creativity). And DS got into Cornell Engineering, yay!
D wrote about quitting her makeup addiction and what she learned about herself and society by going natural.
I… don’t think I would accept the kid that wrote the Taylor Swift essay, if it crossed my desk. Hunger Games girl though: yes. The thing with “weird” essays is it’s so dependent on who reads them. But on the other hand: you have to stand out somehow.
I worked with a bunch of girls this year on their college essays & they had mixed results. All of them were above-average writers since I know them through a writing program.
Girl #1: Common App prompt 1, wrote about her diverse family/upbringing, starting with an attention-grabbing narrative scene where her guidance counselor was worried something was wrong at home b/c the people who would pick her up from school were all different races/nationalities (and couldn’t be related to her). Got into UCLA, UC Berkeley, Fordham, Georgetown. Rejected from Harvard, U Chicago & I think Dartmouth. (she had other essays too, but this was her core one)
Girl #2: She did Common App prompt 2 or 3; can’t remember. She wants to study environmental science & wrote about visiting a canyon as a girl & experiencing nature, then returning after a wildfire caused by human error & she reflected on environmental impact people have. I’m making her essay sound boring but it was AMAZING. She used vivid imagery and told it like a story–she was able to get across her curious & thoughtful personality (including an anecdote about “adopting” a baby bird that died :/). It was the best college essay I read last year. She got into UCLA, UC Berkeley, Reed College & her third UC (can’t remember which one). She only applied to 5 schools and her only rejection was MIT.
Girl #3: wrote about growing up with a flight attendant mom, and how she would fly with her and “assist” the passengers… which she used to segue into how important reading was/is to her since she’d be on these long haul flights with little to do. Both demonstrated her low income background (single mom w/ blue collar job) and her primary interest area. It was a good read. I don’t know all her schools acceptances/rejections, but she got a full ride to Mizzou for journalism.
So it really is about how you spin what you write/making it engaging and unique, IMO. Any of these could have been ordinary if written poorly, but were well done (I think telling a story is a huge advantage each one had) and netted these girls pretty good results!
S1’s two main essays: 1) thoughts on life from the perspectives in Godel, Escher, Bach; and 2) what books were under his bed. Also wrote essays about theoretical computer science, how HCSSiM totally changed his life and his research and teaching interests.
S2’s main essays: 1) a short essay on cooking beef bourgignon over a campfire (written on a camping trip in one glorious draft); 2) football, Tennyson and Shakespeare; 3) a deep, deep essay on how his political philosophies have changed.
Both really made their essays sing to the specific schools they wanted. It worked.
No idea.
Both kids submitted their essays without my seeing them. S did allow his sister to proof for him.
But they got where they wanted to be.
Some of these essay topics are great. I would enjoy reading them myself!
My daughter, who is a HS senior, committed the sin of writing about sports. She answered prompt #2 and talked about something she was actually really bad at. It wasn’t about losing the big game, just a personal story about some aspect of her sport. It turned out to be an entertaining essay, humorous in a self deprecating way, and the reader learned something about her that she thought was an important quality. It wasn’t Hemingway, but it was her. And it was a topic she could write up easily and naturally. It might not have gotten her into an Ivy, but that wasn’t what she was trying for, so I guess it worked for her.
I wrote about the internet being my perfect environment and being enmeshed in computers evidently not very good. 
Those are awful questions. My daughter is going to freeze up at consideration of each of them.
My son wrote the common app essay about his working at a theme park and having to turn kids away from rides if they were too short. He had one supplemental essay in which he wrote about hot sauce. He was accepted to 7 schools and waitlisted for 2 so I think he was successful.
D made the mistake by writing about all the taboo topics - it was about her handicapped grandmother who nevertheless always managed to attend D’s games, except for her championship game, because she (GM) was working on a Tsunami relief project.
But D is a terrific writer, and managed to keep the essay truly about herself. We were advised that good essays are about the student, and the topic doesn’t matter. What does matter is showing passion for something - and including humor helps if it shows who you are - the adcoms can spot forced humor.
My S wrote about his experience as a landlord for his grandfather’s rental property and how dealing with the tenant’s constant late payments changed his perspective and understanding. He was accepted to every school he applied to.
Thanks for all of the responses! I’ve really, really enjoyed reading the very creative ideas.
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I wrote about Beyonce and getting my driver’s license (in the same essay). I think the key is just to write about what you’re genuinely interested in and your personality will shine through.
Have you looked at the specific forum where there are plenty of discussions about essays? It has been a consistent theme on CC for as far as I can remember.
College essays are a strange beast. People tend to overthink them (they really are pretty simple) but tend to massively underwork them (there are few great writers but wonderful editors.)
Fwiw, it appears that a lot of our “consensus” is challenged when schools release “winning essays” just as Chicago did a few years ago. The chosen essay would have been easily rejected by THIS board and exposed for the drivel … it was. The adcom in charge thought differently. Then you have the news of someone getting in all Ivies because of his essay about getting out of Nigeria. Chances are that it would fit the Harry Bauld’s major no-no type.
Despite the above, I do think that great essays do make a difference, but that very few deserve the title of great essays. Based on CC occasional essay that surface, I think it is NOT hard to emerge from a sea of the utter mediocrity that results from the input of teachers at HS and other clueless adults.
But it is not hard to understand why the essays remain that bad … just look at what people commonly think about what they should be, namely creative hodgepodge of non-sense and navel gazing.
I have been meaning to post. My son compared U Chicago and Tufts as settings for the zombie apocalypse in the " why tufts? " essay. He pointed out how Tufts was a much easier campus to defend from the walking undead and that was why he wanted to attend- not deep, but funny. For his common app he talked about the similarities between grouse lekking and college applications and some book that he was reading at the time. It worked cuz he got into Tufts ED where he has been happy
^that’s actually really funny and creative, nice!
S1 wrote about his 6 months 24hrs/day in a back brace after fracturing two vertebrae. I don’t think he did a great job describing either the pain or the despair but we refrained from editing them. D wrote about her bedroom, how she reads to her chinchilla and watches the big Douglas Firs swaying in the wind. She found most of the topics not very topical to her - she didn’t really feel she had any notable hurtles, or that she had yet become an adult.
For one of the colleges, D wrote about being the first female in the history of her school to do the entire pegboard despite being built like a shot putter.
Combined they were 12 out of 13 (yeah, you, Colorado College, can suck it).