<p>The "what has sparked your curiosity" question is interesting, although I'm not sure exactly what they mean. What is everyone else writing about?</p>
<p>I wrote about learning piano on my own and how I hope to learn more by buying a real piano someday. I also submitted a music supplement with about 14 or so minutes of me playing classical pieces from Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert etc. I gave the supplement to my English teacher, who is not at all nice when it comes to college essays (by nice I mean how some teachers are like this essay is awesome and don’t offer any criticism), and she said it was well-written and not cliche. My supplement was about 550 or so words. Try to keep it concise</p>
<p>Remember they are just trying to find out more about you - there is no wrong response to any prompt (unless your writing becomes academic than personal) - so even the way you interpret the question will tell the college something unique about you. I recently had a student answer the question “what is important to you?” (for another college) with an essay about eating food. This might seem like a trivial way to understand the prompt (and it might be for most students) but because it was true for her the essay was really compelling. I always encourage students not to poll their peers too much or you risk missing the response that is genuinely true for you; your idea might be in an utterly different category from the norm. If you’re having trouble, just keep coming back to the question and asking yourself in different ways. What things do you engage with that you don’t have to? What makes you excited? What do you research or read about or talk/think/argue about on your own time? Politics, popular culture? What have you sought more of intellectually? Do you read historical fiction, biography, science fiction, cookbooks? Or just what topics have really inspired you in a class or club or…? No province would be inappropriate. Keep it real and don’t worry about impressing; authenticity will win the day.</p>