Topics to avoid for admissions essays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO her essay should be based on more than 4 nights of her life. We're those 4 days really that life changing that they're the only thing worth telling them about?

Actually, lots of "winning" essays are about something much shorter than 4 nights -- a funny story, a family dinner, a photograph, something granny used to say, the house in the 'ole country, etc., etc. The essay is not meant to be a resume.

I received a scholarship on an essay where I wrote about failing my driver's test.

It was a funny essay, well written, descriptive, and talked about how failing was a new experience for me, what I learned from failing, and how I went home, practiced, got my nerves in check, and finally managed to become a safe and legal driver.

That was years ago though so who knows if that is what they are looking for these days.

I am sure my essay stood out from the others, in a good way, and perhaps that is why I won the scholarship.

[Anonymous]

My DD wrote very light--but clever and meaningful essays that showed who she was. They were well written--but she is an excellent writer who had won awards for her writing.

[Anonymous]

The applicant needs to pick a topic that reveals something about themselves. Writing about someone they admire, for example, tells them nothing about her.

[Anonymous]

At Penn the admissions guy said not to write about people you admire - your mom or dad, or grandma. He said, "at the end of your essay I love your grandma too - but we're not admitting her. We want to know about you!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The applicant needs to pick a topic that reveals something about themselves. Writing about someone they admire, for example, tells them nothing about her.

True. And that revelation just might lie in the mission/travel. There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing about a community service experience if it is creative and reveals something different or unusual about the experience. Not every community service is about digging drainage ditches in a foreign country.

[Anonymous]

"Missions" are disturbing. Good thing I don't work in admissions, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The applicant needs to pick a topic that reveals something about themselves. Writing about someone they admire, for example, tells them nothing about her.

True. And that revelation just might lie in the mission/travel. There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing about a community service experience if it is creative and reveals something different or unusual about the experience. Not every community service is about digging drainage ditches in a foreign country.

Dedicated, long term service would be better received I would think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Missions" are disturbing. Good thing I don't work in admissions, I guess.

How are they disturbing?

[Anonymous]

I've been an Ivy alumni interviewer for a while. The admissions offices increasingly view service trips abroad as evidence that the parents can write a check to a company that organizes the trips, not as a signal of something special about the kid.

[Anonymous]

first sexual experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been an Ivy alumni interviewer for a while. The admissions offices increasingly view service trips abroad as evidence that the parents can write a check to a company that organizes the trips, not as a signal of something special about the kid.

Maybe that would be beneficial evidence of the family's ability to pay tuition w/o financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been an Ivy alumni interviewer for a while. The admissions offices increasingly view service trips abroad as evidence that the parents can write a check to a company that organizes the trips, not as a signal of something special about the kid.

As an interviewer, surely you know that not every service is abroad and not everybody writes or can afford to write a big check. I am not an interviewer but one of the most powerful essays I read during my online search for writing good essays was about a low income kid who went to Haiti after the earthquake to help out and came back with a different perspective about his 'impoverishment.' It was very well-written, and he was admitted to three Ivy schools. Though this may be an exception, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss every social experience for an essay.

[Anonymous]

My DD wrote about a trip to an orphanage in Ethiopia and got into an Ivy. She is a non-Christian who traveled with a Christian youth group simply because they were going to the orphanage where the little girl she tutored (after having been adopted) lived. She wrote about being an atheist and how uncomfortable she was with what the youth group leaders would say to people in a third world country, how it affected her to see where her tutoring girl came from and meeting the women who'd taken care of her, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD wrote about a trip to an orphanage in Ethiopia and got into an Ivy. She is a non-Christian who traveled with a Christian youth group simply because they were going to the orphanage where the little girl she tutored (after having been adopted) lived. She wrote about being an atheist and how uncomfortable she was with what the youth group leaders would say to people in a third world country, how it affected her to see where her tutoring girl came from and meeting the women who'd taken care of her, etc.

So writing about a Christian experience from an anti-Christian POV is to be admired, but writing from a Christian POV is to be avoided and disdained?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD wrote about a trip to an orphanage in Ethiopia and got into an Ivy. She is a non-Christian who traveled with a Christian youth group simply because they were going to the orphanage where the little girl she tutored (after having been adopted) lived. She wrote about being an atheist and how uncomfortable she was with what the youth group leaders would say to people in a third world country, how it affected her to see where her tutoring girl came from and meeting the women who'd taken care of her, etc.

So writing about a Christian experience from an anti-Christian POV is to be admired, but writing from a Christian POV is to be avoided and disdained?

Not the PP but I didn't pick up the same vibe as you. Interesting how people read the same thing but interpret differently. I would have liked to have read the essay to see what she took away, if anything, from a spiritual (personal transformation) but not religious POV.