<p>So I wanna start and finish at least my common app essay by the end of July. </p>
<p>I've gotten advice from a few seniors, and from what I've heard, there are a few cliche essay topics that should never be used. </p>
<p>One of them is the "my glorious race," essay. However, I was wondering if I can still write about running, and even a race, if it's not about me winning and having a glorious moment. </p>
<p>I'm actually not the best runner, so I was wondering if I could talk about a particular race that had significance to me, even if I wasn't the first runner to cross the finish line. Would that still make this essay hopelessly cliche? Is it a bad idea to talk about sports in general?</p>
<p>Ur gonna be a senior next year right? And yes sports is really cliche, unless you use really interesting examples. Also use great quotes, it can even be simple,but use something that has gravity.
Like “you will miss 100% of the shots you never take.”</p>
<p>I personally don’t believe that the topic of an essay matters thattt much. If you’re a good writer, you’ll be able to make even a cliche topic into an awesome essay. I say try it, get others to read it and tell you whether or not it’s cliche, and then decide if you want to use it or not.</p>
<p>I dont think that any topic is cliche, it is the writer who writes and portrays the essay… If u write it in a cliche manner it will cliche…
Just do ur best and nothing is cliche…</p>
<p>Note :- these are my views only and the adcoms/other people could have different views…</p>
<p>I agree…it is definitely possible to make a seemingly “cliche” essay topic into a very original and creative piece of work.</p>
<p>However, from my personal experience, writing about a “cliche” topic is often a very safe option. For example, when I was applying to college, I had two essays that were both fairly well written. One was fairly cliche (about a teacher who inspired me) and the other was more original but risky in the sense that I felt that either the adcom people would love it or hate it. In the end, my parents convinced me to go with the “safe” essay choice so that I wouldn’t jeopardize my chances of getting into a lot of colleges. I didn’t get into the very top schools (harvard, princeton, stanford, mit) but I did get into a bunch of pretty decent schools (Penn, Duke, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, USC, etc).</p>
<p>I guess my point is that cliche essay topics aren’t necessarily bad. I mean, it’s great if you can come up with a very original essay topic but to be honest, those can often be a lot more risky because you don’t know how they’re going to come across to the admissions office.</p>
<p>^ Nope, not at all. I was a bit stunned there too :P</p>
<p>I can’t comment from an admissions officer’s perspective, but as a writer, I think it’s definitely how you write about your topic rather than what you write about - barring obvious exceptions like “What I Learned In Prison.”</p>
<p>It is absolutely possible to write a shining essay from a lackluster topic. Conversely, the opposite is also true: topics with lots of potential can be voided by dull prose.</p>
<p>@RyanMK
Clearly my mind is not where it normally is. Totally missing it!</p>
<p>@OP
Well, “I didn’t win but was proud of myself” may be hard to have stand out. Not saying you can’t pull it off, but you might be putting yourself in risky territory with something so un-risky.</p>
<p>the idea is not really cliche. it can work, but not if you say something like, “I learned the greatest lesson that day.” or something like that.</p>
<p>@RyanMK: Oops! I was talking about those essays that are like “i crossed the finish line gloriously, leading my school to victory.”</p>
<p>@Everyone else: Thanks! I guess everyone is right. It’s all about how I deal with the topic that will make it cliche/not cliche. Can I PM some people here when I’m done writing it to critique it?</p>