<p>So my S is writing an essay about his sport. I've read so many places that writing about your sport is so overdone...but he is so committed to it and really wants to write about it. He has done some other things that are really very interesting and unique, but just does not want to write about them.</p>
<p>So how bad is it, really, to write about your sport? I don't mind the cold hard truth!!</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>My son’s general essay was kinda about his sports or at least it was about what a scoreboard says or doesn’t say about a team. Or maybe it was about leadership and what being on a winning (multi state champs) and a losing team (barely had 2W’s in a season) over the years had taught him. I wasn’t thrilled at first, but the truth is, if they write passionately with a larger point (vs we won a big game in the midst of some Rudy moment), I think it shows. Writing YOUR idea will probably be forced and fall flat. Give him free reign but encourage him to have a few essays to draw on. Truth is, once you get a few down you can usually tweak them to the point where they’ll work for just about any supplement as well.</p>
<p>My D wrote about an essay about a very limited experience she had with her sport. It had nothing to do with winning or losing or regular competition but about a very intensive and unique training regime she completed. She could compete as a DIII athlete if she had decided to compete in college. She spent a summer training with a DI, nationally ranked team that included a few olympians and world ranked competitors. It truly required every ounce of physical and mental strength she had to not quit. She was able to write passionately about that experience without it sounding too overdone. If your son can tackle a unique aspect of the sport or some experience within it rather than the overall sport or winning/losing he could craft a great essay that is his. </p>
<p>The important thing is he is committed and excited about the essay. That will bring out his best writing.</p>
<p>DS2 wrote about his sport (X-country) and it went quite well. He was far from a star and in fact took up running only because friends did it. He used the essay to talk about perseverance and hard work. He was admitted to several reaches so I think it went over fine.</p>
<p>S1 wrote an essay about a hobby/sport that he loves (mountain hiking). The essay was part of a scholarship app. They must have liked it. He got the scholarship.</p>
<p>I hear the “I-scored-at-the-buzzer” stories are the essays that really irk adcoms. A general sports essay - done well - could be fine.</p>
<p>I think one mistake that people make with college essays is that they believe they need to pick a TOPIC. Instead, they should be picking what it is about themselves that they want the college to know…their strengths, personality, attributes, and so forth. Then, they should pick a story to tell that will demonstrate those traits. The topic of the story is not the main thing. It surely can be within the context of athletics. It should not be about “The Big Game” (nor should an essay be about “The Big Concert”). </p>
<p>I can think of one of the essays (she wrote many) that D1 used for college and it was set within a sports (soccer) context (she was a three sport varsity athlete). Her story truly was not about soccer itself but took place within her experiences with soccer. The essay showed a lot about her as a person. She got into most of her schools, which included very selective ones and attended an Ivy for what it is worth. </p>
<p>I can think of one other essay she did for a very selective university that had an extra essay where you were to write directions for how to do something. She wrote a very creative essay about how to be a ski racer. She got in there too. They also had the soccer essay and another essay which focused on her well roundedness (which touched on sports briefly too).</p>
<p>My D is finishing up her essay about how playing for a particulary loud, scary, and demanding basketball coach developed her mental toughness. Not exactly about basketball, but certainly in the context of basketball.</p>
<p>If you aren’t supposed to write about sports, what’s a kid like my D supposed to do? She’s a two-sport varsity athlete who also plays year-round on club teams. She belongs to a couple of community service clubs, but 80%-90% of her “free time” since she was ten years old has been spent in athletic endeavors. Doesn’t it make sense to write about what you know best?</p>
<p>Lots of kids write about sports and get into the colleges they want to go to. Essays rarely get a kid into college and rarely keep them out. If the best essay a kid will write is about sports they should write about sports. Not everyone is going to find a unique topic, and that’s okay.</p>
<p>D wrote about her sport - cross country. Her’s was not so much about the sport but about the variety of people who went out for the sport and the fact that there were only 7 athletes that really scored (which she is one of) but she spent a lot of time on the others that came out year after year, day after day to train and run through the conditions because of the love of the sport. She spoke more about the team and how they felt when they were together. Must have worked she got into her first choice school, Bates College, and will be there in a few days for Cross Country practice. </p>
<p>I think the thing is to let yourself come out and this essay did it for her. Also she is very passionate about running and that showed in the essay as well.</p>
<p>I agree with DougBetsy - we were told at Tufts to stay away from the “I met the challenge and overcame it” sports essays. Apparently they are as ubiquitous as “my grandmother is the most amazing person I know” essays.</p>
<p>I agree that the sports essay should not be “I met the challenge and overcame it.” But an essay in a sports context is fine. Actually, one of the colleges I referred to in an earlier post was Tufts! LOL D got in. Her personal essay focused on well roundedness and many aspects of herself (sports was a small part of that). Her activity essay was a story she told in the context of soccer but was not really about soccer or winning any game. The third essay was their (at the time) prompt about writing directions on how to do something and hers was about what makes a good ski racer. She also wrote about why she wanted to attend Tufts.</p>
<p>The best advice here is looking at the larger context of your personality and trying to find a way to convey that to adcoms. Someone else said they so want to ask if kids essay is what got them in or not, but you’ll never know.</p>
<p>Tuft’s admissions said the same general thing to us as well with “Grandma might be great but unless she’s applying to TUfts, we don’t care that she is the bridge champ in her town.” </p>
<p>This whole conversation had me digging out son’s essay. And I think overall it spoke about his resiliency, his ability to step into leadership roles, which all require something a little different, and that mostly what it takes is integrity and the willingness to “walk the talk without saying a word.” <– my favorite phrase of the whole thing. I may not have liked it at first (or even later actually) but he did get into almost all of the schools to which he applied and beyond his ED rejection had a really good pick of schools. He also wrote one about trying out for a school play more so to prove that the jock stereotype was just that, a stereotype but in the process he got so much out of the whole thing. Point is: and I swear I have one… I think the only thing a parent should help with when it comes to the essay is helping the kid narrow down what it is they want to impart to the adcoms that cannot be cleaned from the application itself or the teacher recommendations, counselors report.</p>
<p>DD also used examples from her sports experiences and got into all 6 schools she had on her list from Vassar to UVA to Berkeley, so a wide range of places. Ironically the one school she did not get into was a top school that was not on the list until a coach contacted her ;)</p>
<p>DD did not write about the sport, she wrote about herself and used sports experiences as examples, as a three sport varsity athlete on travel teams might be expected to do.</p>
<p>The important thing was that the essay was a real reflection of ‘her’</p>
<p>I agree with post #13, parents can give input, but the final result needs to feel right to the applicant so that acceptances and denials feel right; if you write a great essay that really reveals who you are and school A denies you, maybe you should not be there. If you submitted Dad’s essay, you may always wonder about that fit</p>
<p>S wrote one essay about what it felt like to get injured pretty badly and not be able to do your sport,then watch the team go on to a championship!
The school he wrote it for must have enjoyed it, they invited him to one of their big scholarship interview weekends!</p>
<p>SoozieVTs first post–bingo.</p>
<p>Actually, I do not allow my students to pick the topic first. They have to pick which points they want to show about themselves in each essay the college will receive (different points plugged into different essays) and then discuss possible stories they can tell that will demonstrate those points. I don’t care if the story is told within the context of sports. What I care about is that when the essay is read, that the reader could state several attributes they learned about the student. When the reader reads the second or third required essay, what different points about the student did the reader glean? The application should have a message (or several) about the applicant. That is what the essays are about, not the topic itself.</p>
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<p>Not true in the least. 
Unless of course they specifically said, “we loved your essay and want to invite you to scholarship weekend!” Otherwise there are so many pieces to an application there is no way of knowing what tipped in your favor.</p>
<p>I’ve always said that mathson’s essay was “I am a computer nerd”, but I think it was really “when I’m interested in a subject I’ll figure out a way to teach myself everything I want to know about it.”</p>
<p>My son wrote about how soccer has made him want to be a true citizen of the world–he has trained/played with coaches from all over the world ( England , Wales, Barbados, Croatia, Macedonia, Mexico and Israel) who have literally been all over the world, and how with various teams he has benefitted from travellling all over the US and to some foreign countries in competitions. He wrote about staying in a dorm in England with players from six other countries, and about all he learned from them==tricks and skills, swear words, supersititions, and about how they traded jerseys and scarves and jeans–the jerseys and scarves decorate the walls of his room still. When he was 15, one coach gave him the book “How Soccer Explains the World” and that was one of the vignettes he used in his essay. The same coach, who did not go to school after age 14,but is very well read and self educated, also helped my son with his Latin/Vergil…another lesson about people my son learned through soccer.
So his essay was about soccer, but not about “the big games.” it was more about “the big picture.”</p>
<p>He also mentioned in passing all of the fundraising he has had to do–he did not want to come across as a spoiiled, privileged brat.</p>