Yale Supplemental Essay Question

[climb2thetop]

For the Yale essay prompt:
Reflect On A Time In The Last Few Years When You Felt Genuine Excitement Learning About Something.

I wrote about learning how to wiggle my ears. (one summer I decided I wanted to learn how to wiggle my ears so I sat in front of a mirror and learned) Now that I am reading over it I am not sure if it is too risky or if it is something creative that the admission committee would enjoy.

Opinions?

[ThinkOn]

Did you learn something about yourself in this process? If you could make this “fun” topic into something substantive about yourself, how it improved you, your outlook in things, etc, then go for it. Otherwise, I’m not sure what the point would be…Hope this helps.

[gibby]

This might be a good time to review a few sentences from Michele Hernandez’s book A is for Admission

Students who ignore the importance of self-presentation do so at their peril.

Colleges look for students who show initiative and passion. Those are the two mantras you should repeat to yourself over and over as you fill out your application. Think passion and intellectual depth. If there is one single area that admissions officers are looking for above all others, it is intellectual firepower. Though there are many valedictorians, there are few who show a deep and sincere love of learning. Those are the ones who are accepted most often into the most selective colleges.

You represent an investment for the college. Like any investor, colleges seek an aggressive return on their investment. Therefore, they look for students who are active, show leadership, and have demonstrable skills in a specific area such as sports or music – in short, those who will make a difference, those who will be remembered for years.

Although learning to wiggle your ears may on the surface appear to be a good essay topic, what does it say about you? Does it show initiative? Does it scream intellectual depth and firepower? Does it demonstrate a passion and love of learning that might translate to other areas? Does demonstrate leadership? Does it show self-relefction and introspection? Of ALL the topics you could choose to write about, is this the one topic that you want to present to an Admissions Committee?

My guess is that no matter how “funny” the topic may appear to a 17-year old, it has the potential of falling flat with an Admissions Committee. I would really think twice about submitting an essay on this topic.

Full Disclosure: My son, who graduated from Yale in 2015, wrote his supplemental essay about all the inane things he has learned from watching Youtube videos, including playing guitar chords, driving a stick shift car, developing a strategy for beating his father at pingpong, and watching college professor’s lectures on computer science and physics. All of which proves that you can write an essay about an inane topic, but that topic needs to tell an Admission Committee something about yourself and how your mind works. As @thinkon wrote: “I’m not sure what the point would be” – and I agree!