<p>Okay. So every school requires an admission essay that reflects your personality. I'll be applying to schools next fall and wanna know what some of you people wrote about. </p>
<p>Soooo...</p>
<p>-What school did you apply to?
-What was the prompt?
-What did you write about?
-Accepted/Rejected?</p>
<p>I’ll post for my Common App.
-Schools: Brown (top choice), Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, WashU, Case Western
-Prompt: Topic of your choice
-Topic: Risky one, personally–my biggest regret (family related), except without all of the “it helped me learn such and such lesson and develop as a person” crap. Oh, and no happy ending 
-Accepted, Waitlisted, Rejected, Waitlisted, Accepted</p>
<p>Clearly my personal statement wasn’t for everyone, but it was something close to my heart and I wrote it for Brown anyway. Bad idea, but I guess it worked!</p>
<p>I think it’s cool you wrote about something personal. I mostly hear about kids writing about some internship or something academic & how they learned such-and-such & all that bull crap. It just seems so clich</p>
<p>That’s the reason why I didn’t choose to write about the obvious (i.e. motivation of my involvement in my ECs) 
However, what I couldn’t really stomach was that colleges are looking for certain qualities in a student while getting to know you at the same time–and not all colleges emphasize the same traits. Therefore, to market yourself (sorry, word choice) in the best light possible, the most convenient way is to highlight an important accomplishment or adversity. </p>
<p>It may be horribly ironic advice, but listen to your heart, whether it’s crying “cliche” or not. I spent months debating on my essay topic because I knew that thousands upon thousands of kids talked about their family issues. But, to quote a Brown admission officer, “you’re 17. We don’t expect you to have saved the world. Tell us something that’s important to you, not what you think is important to us.” If you write about something that has really impacted your life, I think you’ll be able to write it in a way that no one else can. Good luck!</p>