Mine were “How has your community shaped your character?” and “What is the biggest challenge facing your generation? Why does it matter to you”
I just poured my heart into the latter. I wrote about ethnic polarization and how it matters to me because of my international bi-racial background.
How about you guys?
Oh wow, that’s really deep and then there’s my essay about un-inventing fidget spinners…
Uninventing fidget spinners, interesting, I would definitely uninvent those, I instead choose to uninvent a form of government (I won’t say which for the easily foreseeable issues that will be created if I do) because based on the effects that it had on our history.
I have to say, my favorite essay prompt that I had would definitely be the one that asked about what I thought the greatest problem, current or future, facing our generation was.
I choose to talk about the disappearance of net neutrality and the bias in media because of the large effects of those two issues coupled together would have on the world.
I’ve always wondered if it was appropriate to write about a political issue for boarding school essays. Although you could come across as knowledgeable and sophisticated, a lot of time, it can sound very pompous and narrow.
Although I’m not too sure if uninventing fidget spinners was a good essay topic, I definitely agree with it 
Not BS, but one college asked what super power would you want if you could be a super hero? I think this would be a good question for BS applicants. Maybe next year…
i may or may not have written an entire essay on artificial intelligence destroying the human race, what do you reckon they figure i’ve been watching too much of the matrix?
^^ There’s also Hawking and Musk.
@preppedparent that was a BS prompt for one school last year.
^^I guess the same prompts get recirculated.
Yup, I remember the super-power prompt from 2 cycles back, but not which school nor how AppleKid answered it! The one I loved the most was a short-answer prompt, IIRC, asking what do you like most about your best friend. AppleKid’s response brought me to tears. I’m tearing up now thinking about it.
ETA: The worst prompt was the one about “you’re YouTube video just got one million hits–what’s it’s title” or something like that. AppleKid was super stuck on that and the response given was quite forgettable.
The uninvention was recycled. Buuznkid’s response made me laugh out loud…and we still refer to it and giggle. He didn’t get accepted to that school, so I guess they didn’t appreciate his humor.
*your
sometimes it stinks to get older and less detail-oriented; but it’s also kind of a blessing
My DD hopes to uninvent gender inequality… The funniest one DD is responding to is…“what would you do if you were invited to a friend’s house for dinner and you found a fly in your soup?”
Older DD answered the superpower one and it was very true in her case. She has always wanted the power to fly, and has mentioned it for as long as I can remember. Well…she does fly, but its in the pool:).
Many essay prompts seemed to overlap, but the best interview question my kid had we are still laughing about- it was the following: Describe a typical dinner your mother would cook. :))
^^^In our house, it would have to be “father,” not mother.
Two cycles back, the superhero prompt was from Choate. Hotchkiss had great prompts too.
“If I were a superhero I would want to be able to turn anything into food. My superhero name would be Grub Girl. First, I would use my powers to help myself when I’m feeling extremely hungry and there is nothing in the fridge that strikes my interest. Of course, I would also use my power to help starving children in third-world countries. I’ll fly all over the place in my Grub Girl attire holding a ladle and will throw chapatis over India, pilaf over the Middle East, kebabches over the Balkans, and ugali over Africa. On weekends, I’ll shower the whole world in candy, with occasional torrential rains of Nutella.”
I kid you not.
@GoatMama that is the best.
may I request a rain shower of 5 guys fries instead?
You may not! I’m in credit card debt because of this place. Kid probably eats there more often than in her BS dining hall.
Ditto
@GoatMama AppleKid didn’t apply to Choate and yet had the superpower prompt :-?
Think there’s some common resource from which the admissions departments pull the prompts?