<p>I wrote about an experience I had with a man (he confessed that he went to jail for 10 years) while doing community experience. I revealed one of my personal failures in the essay, and I finished it with a reflection on how I approach community service now. </p>
<p>I am worried that my essay is too "cliched" and was wondering what you guys think about the essay in general?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Based on the experience of my two kids, it is not the topic, but the substance of the essay that matters. My kids wrote essays on fairly typical college essay “topics”. In truth, they were really just essays that revealed who they were intellectually and otherwise. Both got into Vandy.</p>
<p>Without reading your essay draft, it is hard to say. I will mention something we have heard from numerous admissions people. I don’t know how to say this without being direct – too many applicants feel the need to write about horrible incidents/things that happened to them. It must be some basic human thirst for confidential information sharing similar to why strangers will tell you all sorts of confidential things on a 3 hour airplane trip that they would never share with their family or friends. Very strange. I would avoid this at all costs.</p>
<p>The best essays I have ever read followed the “thread from life” approach. You take one slice of your life (the special things you and your dad/mom talk about every morning over breakfast and what they have meant to you/how they have shaped you), the love for your garage and being in their fixing stuff and righting mechanical wrongs in this world, etc.</p>
<p>I would also avoid the whole “I went on Spring Break to Mexico and was around poor people and now I am so grateful for what I have” angle. It is my understanding that admissions gets a million of these.</p>
<p>I am not sure if this helped, but you might want to step back, consider a strand of life theme/idea AND think about how it impacted/shaped you and why that makes you a can’t miss for THAT PARTICULAR SCHOOL.</p>
<p>That is my advice…and I am sticking to it. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>SB</p>
<p>Thank you both for the advice!</p>
<p>Vanderbilt has no essay?!?!</p>