<p>Will that hurt your chances because you showed barely any sense of humor? I'm just not good at writing informal funny essays. Is sense of humor really important?</p>
<p>My counselor encouraged me to try to put something humorous in my essays. I don't think it's going to hurt you if they arent funny...after all Stanford encourages you to be yourself, and if you arent a funny person in general, you won't come off as funny in an essay even if you try, it'll just backfire. On the flipside, they do have to read about 20,000 essays, and a serious tone may get rather boring after a while. Bottom line: the majority of people who apply will write serious essays, so don't worry about it. Just write naturally and your sense of humor will come through if it's there, don't force it.</p>
<p>mine weren't funny..in fact one was rather tragic</p>
<p>actually, unless you are naturally humorous, don't try it.</p>
<p>Well for an essay to be interesting it doesn't HAVE to be funny right?</p>
<p>I think it should just be perosnable, but I wouldn't go for too serious, they read enough of those already</p>
<p>of course not. if you can get the adcomm to cry, then thatd probably be interesting.</p>
<p>former admissions officer people on this site have said several times tragic events are not the way to go in admissions</p>
<p>...if the point of your essay is to garner sympathy or something of the sort. </p>
<p>If, somehow, a tragedy influenced your life and changed you for the better, then I'd say it makes a great topic for an essay....</p>
<p>i had one tragedy but my note to room-mate was funny.</p>
<p>How many people do you know who most people actually think are funny at least 80% of the time? Probably not that many. So if EVERYONE tried to write funny essays, I bet it wouldn't go over so well. And if they did, then a serious essay would be a welcomed break! Essay should be interesting, but it's not necessary that they be funny. They do need to be well written. Whereas humor isn't that important, subject-verb agreement is.</p>
<p>crap! two of my four essays are serious/tragic...damn i'm toast</p>
<p>haha guys, just chill. i'm sure they get their share of funny and serious ones, but if you more serious ones, it's not the end of the world. just as long as you came alive through your essays and they can put a person to the application package rather than numbers, you should be fine. what's done is done, and we should all just do our normal stuff while they deliberate over our applications. there's nothing more we can do.</p>
<p>we can send them lots and lots and lots of money.... and hope that our bribery works... thats what im doing....</p>
<p>Whatever flows, really. Most people aren't funny when they try to be, but are when they don't. But don't try to be a comedian, because you ain't.</p>
<p>everybody needs to stop checking and rechecking their stuff...i'm doing it too, so i guess that advice is hypocritical... :) don't worry, i'm sure your essays are fine!</p>
<p>I didn't try to be funny or thought-provoking or overly saccharine in my essays, but still I think they came out sounding like my own voice. Just be yourself and write what comes naturally to you.</p>