Writing pg 217 of your autobiography: am I being risky or is this the norm?

<p>I chose a very specific event in my future life to write about. But after reading this specific essay, <a href="http://www.justcolleges.com/essays/college_upenn.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.justcolleges.com/essays/college_upenn.htm&lt;/a> , I'm wondering if the admissions comittee is looking for a more broader scope of your life like the essay in the link.</p>

<p>I was thinking along the lines of character and values (how my life has changed) not material goods. The essay seems so straightforward without much grasp. Is this what we're supposed to be "aiming" for? I hope to write about realistic goals, how they have affected me, etc. Just my two cents =T</p>

<p>That's what I was thinking as well. But apparently the essay was accepted. And this website only uses examples of GOOD accepted essays. So I don't know what to say.</p>

<p>bumper cars are cool</p>

<p>I wouldn't fret too much about it. "Good" essays don't really depend on the subject matter, it's all about style, description, etc. And if you could write about a pen, make it sound eloquent, significant, meaningful, that could qualify as a good essay. Similarly, I've seen what have been qualified as "good" essays about rather hackneyed topics (e.g. winning/losing the state championship). But I'm always the most impressed by the mundane-gone-profound approach. </p>

<p>Also, I wasn't too impressed by the pg. 217 essay, although I concede that I could not write that particular prompt quite so well. The main thing that irked me was the continuity. It seemed rather choppy (though the beginning and end were amusing), not much flow to it. After finishing each paragraph, a part of me wanted to quit reading, because the next paragraph dealt with another topic entirely. </p>

<p>Overall, essays are just suppose to be original and stand out - doesn't really matter what you write about (the only qualification being that it responds to the prompt).</p>

<p>JohnGalt, I noticed that the pg 217 essay is very literal, and it came off as more of a "list of things to do". My approach to the same essay is not the same at all. I'm thinking about incorporating figurative meaning, how character is important to me, and the meaning of personal accomplishment. I contemplate all this while working-- I'm an aspiring astronautical engineering (though I'm not 100% certain, but I thought it would be interesting to write about too) who looks down at Earth and has kind of a catharsis and realization (which are the things I've listed). I need opinions on whether or not this would be okay-- I feel like it may not be what they're expecting (in a bad sense).</p>

<p>For all the above repliers, and the OP, I just wanted you to know that my own D's essay for Penn was not deep. She took the assignment more factually, if you will, projecting herself into a story. It was imaginative and cute, with the emphasis on the fiction and the story aspects. Tangentially, it did assume some values and goals, but it was heavier on style & entertainment, than on substance. I actually thought that was a nice balance, as her academic profile & the rest of her app, etc. was so serious & focused, with the essay, by contrast, showing creativity. Like some of you, she wasn't sure what Penn was really after, but they must have at least not <em>disliked</em> it, as she was accepted.</p>

<p>I think as with all writing, the essay should show coherence from opening to end, & should show that you've put thought into it. Otherwise, you probably don't need to get too exercised about it. I actually thought this was a better essay question than some of the more pretentious on the one hand, or boring on the other hand, essay prompts from various colleges. I think Penn is looking to find a window into who you are other than as a student per se. (That would be important to them.)</p>

<p>It's hard to imagine an essay to not be cliche when it is more factual. I might have the wrong idea of what your D's essay may have been like, but everytime I think of someone trying to answer this essay prompt, the same few things pop up: "success in life", "how I'll spend my life", etc. Can you elaborate more on how your D's essay was not the ordinary "I'm going to be successful, etc."?</p>

<p>kRabble,
I don't have a copy of it; my D has all her docs on her own computer, etc. But when I say "factual" I mean descriptive/creative (a story, in-process, in mid-life, imaginatively). It was not a philosophical or psychological discussion <em>about</em> her imagined/projected life, but a description of a "moment in time" & further filling-in about what had gone on (broadly) prior to that. Because it included choices (she imagined) she would have made, it was also revelatory about her values, priorities, & how she would have expected her education at Penn to relate and apply, generally & practically, to that imagined life.</p>

<p>It was much more story-telling, more in the fictional mode, than philosophical evaluation.</p>

<p>To me, as a reader (she asked for my feedback), it came across as fresh and non-cliched.</p>

<p>Would you recommend someone taking the more fictional path or would a philosophical twist be okay too? I'm trying to imagine the type of essays adcoms don't want. Any ideas?</p>

<p>I guess the answer to that question would be partly based on how confident or comfortable you feel in an imaginative or fictional mode. I guess my D's essay was more like the one linked by the OP than an evaluative one, but my D's, while optimistic, wasn't quite as much a travel fantasy as the one in the Just Colleges link -- although I appreciate that we saw only part of that essay. (I think my D's was better, more grounded; I say that as one who judges writing a lot, not as a relative.)</p>

<p>Perhaps you would want to experiment with writing 2 types of responses -- one more story-oriented, one more topic-oriented within the autobiographical format, & ask for feedback from others as to which one is received as more interesting. </p>

<p>Clearly, the Comments published in the above link were respectful of the creativity aspect.</p>

<p>I should add that my D actually thought that Penn wanted a future event to be the subject. As the linked comments indicate, the reader was fine with that for the published essay. But apparently the expectation was that the autobiographical context would be up to age 18. Perhaps the student in the Just Colleges link also assumed that the question meant future, not past. The fact that my D assumed future meant that she had to get creative, of course. She assumed that 18-yr-olds don't generally write autobiographies, but that as an older person she conceivably would, so she imagined a future life & wrote from that perspective.</p>

<p>I also thought this essay was about further in the future (15 or 20 years). Are we 'supposed' to write about our life in the next year (18 years old) or so?</p>

<p>I don't know, KRabble. I can only suppose that Penn admissions chose an essay prompt that they thought would be accessible & immediate to an applicant (one's own autobiography), & from the linked Comments, they, as I said, assumed an applicant's own history to date, but did not disapprove of a more inventive approach. Since we know of 2 applicants, minimum, who were accepted using the future approach, it is considered within the realm of the question -- which as I recall, does not specify <em>when</em> said "autobiography" (fictional in any case, since unpublished) should be located.</p>

<p>So just do what feels best & most natural to you -- whatever time-frame allows you to be more descriptive, expressive of yourself.</p>

<p>Write the best essay YOU want and the quality will come through. Dont write what you think the adcoms want or it will seem false....literal, fictionalized either could work if the point of view were clear and the essay told the story you want to tell. I wrote some essays as fictionalized pieces because I got sick of writing "I", "I", "I" over and over......Put the adcom in your shoes ...dont try to get into their shoes.</p>

<p>By fictional piece, do you mean something that still shows you but didn't happen exactly that way. For example, you probably didn't write this:</p>

<p>"So after winning my first Nobel prize, I was intent on winning another gold medal at the Olympics."</p>

<p>Or did you write something that is believable and something that you actually do?</p>

<p>I think Spiker is correct. This is really an open-ended question so that people will answer it in a variety of ways. If you read archived Penn threads where kids talk about the essays, you will find that kids have done many predictable and many creative things with the prompt, both with great success. It can be fictional or not, present or past or future, etc. Rather than force a style, just start to write an essay that is comfortable for you.</p>

<p>Rather than ask about my D's essay -- although I don't mind -- it would be just as instructive to refer to the linked essay. Did that sound realistic to you? Not to me, and not to the evaluator(s), so the writer was not being judged on realism -- although in this case the exaggeration was a tool of the "revenge" twist, & that was noted appreciatively by the reader. But, "a couple million dollars in pocket money"? That's pretty rosy.</p>

<p>I can tell you that my D's essay was also quite rosy. It assumed a smooth & successful career, marriage, parenthood after college. It reflected the optimism of youth, which is terrific, & which is natural to this age. So if you're driven to become a world class athlete (LOL, probably you're not committing 4 challenging yrs to an Ivy League U if you're headed that way), then it would be "realistic" (because relevant) to your mind-set to write about Olympics, or to make that one of the settings referred to in the mini autobio.</p>

<p>In my view -- & I have no "inside" knowledge -- my take on the Penn prompt was to have the applicant imagine self as a non-student, whether in real-life context from current life, or projected into the future. I think there are no set expectations or tricks about what they're looking for. It might raise a red flag if the writer came across as so egotistical as to be a megalomaniac ("after my success starting 50 Fortune-500 companies & becoming a trillionaire, I then consolidated my global power by becoming Emperor of the World," etc.) or didn't seem too in touch with reality ("after the aliens from Planet Moratovia escorted me to their palatial abode," etc.). Otherwise, "realism" is relative. You're not expected to have a 38-yr-old's perspective on the world when you're 18.</p>

<p>Try to have fun with it!</p>

<p>Ahh.. thank you all for the input. I'm still debating whether my essay should cover a single day or perhaps a longer period of time. Also, I don't know whether I should tell of events/anecdotes that will reveal things about me or tell events/anecdotes about what I want in the future. I'm feeling more comfortable telling of anecdotes that reveal things about me, but it's a little bit of a challenge fitting them all in one day (if I choose to write my essay about a single day in my childhood).</p>

<p>^My essay covers about 10 minutes of an event that happens</p>