<ul>
<li>My diverse background</li>
<li>My dads selflessness influencing my career goals</li>
<li>Living with social anxiety and stage fright, but getting leads in school plays/leadership roles anyway</li>
<li>My mom getting cancer (I wanted to put this in additional info under why my gpa is low)</li>
<li>Study abroad in China; seeing how cruel people can be</li>
</ul>
<p>Or none of the above? Thanks!!! :)</p>
<p>Oh, also, </p>
<ul>
<li>Being a vegetarian of 7 years; my parents sneaking meat into my food and the battle of being “weird”</li>
</ul>
<p>China or vegetarian. I think they are the most unique, but, the again, they all could be fine as long as you reveal yourself in them adequately and passionately.</p>
<p>Thing is, I don’t know what will impress them…</p>
<p>i dont like China, you should never attack anyone or any group of people in your college essays, so if you cant write about something other than cruel people, avoid that topic. Furthermore, colleges get a decent amount of study abroad trips and the good ones are centered out of POSITIVE experiences. If you write about how China was such a bad experience and all you learned was how cruel people were, they are going to think that you wasted your time there. Study abroad trips should be written about how the culture and diversity furthered your outlook on life and the world community and has positvely changed how you view the world. Not to say that experiencing bad things can’t change you for the good and make a good essay topic, but you could easily find out how cruel people are in america as in China, therefore by writing an essay about that you’re defeating the purpose of the whole China thing.</p>
<p>the diverse background could be good, but we cant really tell how diverse you are just from this post lol</p>
<p>for the whole social anxiety…do you actually have psychologically diagnosed social anxiety? because if you dont, So many people could just say oh I have social anxiety, when in reality feeling anxiety is natural and EVERYONE feels it, just some people show it more than others. if you really do have social anxiety, then this would be a good topic,</p>
<p>I like the vegetarian topic</p>
<p>I like the dad selflessness thing, ONLY if you focus on how its changed you rather than on how great he is. Remember you’re not writing to get your dad admitted, you’re writing to get yourself admitted. </p>
<p>Mom getting cancer thing, I think this works out better in additional info. You never want to write a pity-me essay and the whole point of the essay is for them to get to know you, not more about your grades. That works well in additional info or could even be mentioned by your counselor in their rec, but dont waste the essay on it</p>
<p>The point of the personal statement is to reveal more about you- your strengths, how you think and how you are influenced- maybe the positive impact something has had on you, maybe how you grew from it and/or your resiliance and maturity. The idea is to capture their interest in YOU, as a potential admit, someone who will fit and thrive at their school. This is very hard to do with a negative topic or anything that focuses on someone else. Or, anything that too radically sets you apart.</p>
<p>All right, well the social anxiety isn’t really diagnosed, but I wasn’t specifically going to call it that. I just wanted to talk about how I’m much more shy than most people, and for awhile it kept me from doing things that I wanted to do, but after I auditioned for the lead in the school musical and got it, I don’t let anything stop me from trying to accomplish what I want.</p>
<p>Vegetarian topic is nice, but I don’t really know what to reveal about myself in it. Basically, I chose to become vegetarian because I felt really bad for the animals. I woke up one day, said “I’m a vegetarian now,” and haven’t gone back in seven years. I don’t know what that’s supposed to say about me though. Dedication? Compassion? What am I trying to prove?</p>
<p>As you now describe the shyness, it could be good. Don’t spend too many words on the shy part. Be sure you can wrap with more than now doing plays- your new confidence should take you to all sorts of new experiences- responsibilities- including vol work and.or community servce. You want to remember show-not-tell. Done right, it could really show your maturity and awareness and willingness to try. </p>
<p>Vegetarian- There’s nothing new you can say about it, as you note. It’s actually joked about by some. You have to write it in a way that really proves some other point.</p>
<p>Thank you so much 
That was helpful.</p>