<p>For the optional essay, I picked the "significant experience in high school" one (but it seems that most people decided to write the "plain fun" one). So, my question is: did any of you guys choose the one I chose?</p>
<p>i chose the "plain fun" one, because my "significant experience in high school" went as the common app essay.</p>
<p>Same as fa-la-la-lena, I chose the plain fun one. I did so because I knew it'd be easier for me to write about since I would have more passion in it. I also thought that maybe it could give them a glimpse of who I was outside of just school work. (I wrote about going to high school football games :P)</p>
<p>i picked the high school one--just because i did the 'fun' one for the common app essay
i wrote about the first days in school--about seeing everyone again</p>
<p>Haha, oh no! xD They must have gotten a million "what I do for fun" essays!</p>
<p>My d. did 'what i do for fun' and talked about how she loves going to theater.</p>
<p>yeap, I did the fun one and talked about meeting my french friend in 6th grade and how we still hang out almost every summer / developed a good friendship. This is just me, but if I were an admissions officer at Pomona I would want to know that the applicant likes to have a good time / is generally affable / is not a frigid, static personality. Sure, they would like to know about extroardinary things you've done, but they seem to value the ideal of having an applicant who will "fit" and will take advantage of the social and academic environment. I guess a big part of it too though is which essay you can write better and better articulates/preserves your voice.</p>
<p>Well, I wrote about the most important part of high school, but it was something fun! So there, I broke the trend.</p>
<p>Chose the plain fun because I know I put a lot more passion into it than I could have with the high school experience and how it affected my decision to choose the colleges. Wrote about roller coasters. Hurray! haha</p>
<p>This isn't really related to this thread, but...</p>
<p>@Batman: I know someone who applied to MIT with an essay on roller coasters and the "fascinating" physics behind them</p>