In elementary school, I lived in Spain for two years. My parents think I should write my essay about that experience but I feel like the immigration essay is one of the most common ones. There are definitely a few funny experiences that I could flush out but do y’all think this is too overplayed? Especially since other than the obvious language and cultural barrier, my life there was pretty cushy: everyone was super nice to me, I was often complimented for being “rubia”, my parents were there, etc.
So, here’s the thing: remember the purpose of the essay? it is a way of adding something to your application that is not obvious from the rest of the application- something that will make an AO think ‘ah, this is somebody we really want to have be part of this community’.
Guessing that your parents reckon that having lived overseas for 2 years is the most ‘unique’ thing about you. The thing is - it’s not that unique. More importantly, it is pretty half your life ago! what have you done since?
IF you can link that in some interesting way to who you are now- that shows how you took what you did with that experience and draws some lines to the present (ie, to things that you have done that you had control over, v something that happened to you) and perhaps dotted lines to the future that might be a worthwhile essay. Otherwise, imo keep looking.
Yah, that was mostly my thought. I suppose it began my passion with languages, leading me to take two languages in high school and wanting to minor in a language in college. Right now I’m helping out with an esol morning program in my old elementary school, which I guess might be able to relate to my present, and the experience definitely led to me wanting to work with languages as part of my future job. Do you think its enough?
Mine did in a way and it worked for her on an “if you could spend time in any country which and why” sort of essay. She spent her life overseas and actually wrote about wanting to visit the US and why. It was clever. You can make it work. It isn’t about writing something complex, it’s about telling something about you.
I was going to say that your problem is that it was back in elementary school. Colleges want current info — they don’t care a lot about experiences before HS. But if it was the start of an Interest that you’ve built on, and you can focus more of your essay on your HS years, then I think it is ok.