College Essays - What does your suburban, well brought up, problem free, applicant write about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DD had to write hers today, I think her college essay would be "How I Almost Missed The Justin Beiber Concert When My Parents Made Me Go To My Great Uncle's Funeral". Oh, the horror of it all.

Mine should have been "How I Missed Lollapalooza In Three Different Cities While My Parents Dragged Me On The Shittiest Road Trip Vacation Ever And My Floozy Frenemy Used My Ticket And Caught Eddie Vedder's T-Shirt." But I'm over it.

Doesn't sound like you're over it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its one thing to brainstorm with your child. Its another to ask strangers on the internet what your child should write about. Big difference. The former involves helping your child find his or her own topic, something meaningful to him or her. The latter involves trying to find out "what works" because strangers on the internet don't know your child.

So while most of you are referring to helping your child find their own topic, OP was asking what works.

Not sure there's a "big difference" here. Finding out "what works" is the first step, and narrowing down the topic is the second step. There's been a lot of good advice here about what works: making it personal, showing who you are, not making yourself into a hero, not writing for a market. Some people offered examples of what their kids wrote, by way of illustration. It's not "tell me what to write" - big difference.

[Anonymous]

I remember reading about a humorous and successful essay way back in the 80s. The question was about thr applicant's greatest accomplishment. The writer told of learning to drive with her mom helping her, even as her mon was clearly terrified of her driving. Her accomplishment was not killing her mother.

Point is, anything sincerely chosen and well written can be good enough.

[Anonymous]

These types of topics always make me think back to Hugh Gallagher's classic essay, which is, the best college essay ever written (sort of). Urban legend has it that he used this essay and got into NYU. However, he wrote this for a writing contest (which he won). He did not use this for his own college entrance essay. He is a successful humor writer. http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbyol3.htm

Hugh Gallagher wrote:

3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:

ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.

[Anonymous]

A good friend's child recently wrote about how she spent every summer in her dad's hometown.

I always thought is was a summer of privilege - beautiful house on the lake, mom SAH so had the flexibility to be there for the summer.
It was presented as the relationship she had with her grandmother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good friend's child recently wrote about how she spent every summer in her dad's hometown.

I always thought is was a summer of privilege - beautiful house on the lake, mom SAH so had the flexibility to be there for the summer.
It was presented as the relationship she had with her grandmother.

Sweet. Where did she end up going?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good friend's child recently wrote about how she spent every summer in her dad's hometown.

I always thought is was a summer of privilege - beautiful house on the lake, mom SAH so had the flexibility to be there for the summer.
It was presented as the relationship she had with her grandmother.

You have to be careful with these topics. One admissions officer said recently (at some info session we were at) that writing about grandparents is one of the most common topics and can be a challenge because too many of them end up being about the grandparent and do not provide a window into the applicant.

[Anonymous]

I think every admissions staffer gives the same warning, usually stated as "we end up wanting to admit Nana, but the kid doesn't make any impression on us." Regardless of the topic, the admissions committee wants to know how the applicant is processing the experience he or she is writing about -- so, how has the applicant's relationship with Nana shaped him/her, what has he/she gleaned from that relationship, etc.

[Anonymous]

Many moons ago, I wrote about how I had reasoned my way out of fears, including my extreme fear that the world would end and judgment day would come (thank you Catholic Church). I used to lay awake at night wondering if every sound I heard was signaling the beginning of the End Times. I wrote that I felt much better after figuring out it was already tomorrow somewhere else in the world.

Completely stupid when I look back on it now, but the conviction with which I wrote it was apparently persuasive. I ended up being admitted Early Decision to a very highly ranked school that my guidance counselor said would "maybe" take me off the wait list "at the very end" if I applied.

The point is even the most random topics work, and I have heard over and over from admissions officers at my alma mater (I now volunteer) that the authentic voice is what they are looking for.

[Anonymous]

For those of you whose children are 11th-graders or younger, you can stop fretting about this. Starting next year the Common App will no longer include the option of writing about a topic of the student's choice. http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/new-common-application-will-be-a-stickler-for-essays/

[Anonymous]

DD wrote her essay about meeting our recently reunited adopted family, and the experience of meeting/sharing lives with these relatives who came out of nowhere. It was a thoughtful essay, she chose the topic herself and she didn't focus too much on other people. Simple but effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't have them write about the obstacle of an ACL injury prior to a sporting event!

We went to an information session for BU and the recruiter stated this is one of the most common topics for a college essay and has been WAY overdone.

So true!

We were at UVA this weekend and the admissions person said the same thing. These are others she said to avoid:

1) The horrible experience that changed me
2) It's a Little world-going on a service trip and realizing when music comes on how we are all the same
3) the Nike ad-went to all my AP classes, varsity sport practice, did my community service and then came home to take care of my sibling. Needed to run with my old nikes to appreciate life


She said it is not what you write about but how and how your personality and interests comeacross. her favorite was one where someone wrote about getting their tongue stuck in braces andhow they got it out.


She alsoi said don't use the book, the top 25 college essays.

[Anonymous]

I was a first-generation American growing up in a very WASPy neighborhood. My parents are Romanian Jews, my grandparents are Holocaust survivors. Even though I was a popular kid in school, I still had my issues. I wrote an essay about fitting in and being myself. Got me in NYU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even suburban, problem-free children have had to overcome challenges, no matter how trivial they may seem to, say, world hunger. It's not the challenge that matters, I don't think. It's the lessons learned from meeting the challenge.

Another tack is to write about something the child failed at and what lessons were learned from failure. Just sprinkle it with a couple of good quotes about success from failure, etc.

Don't do this. Do not write about failure.

[Anonymous]

I wrote what I guess you guys would consider a rather cliche essay about my first trip abroad visiting my family in a foreign country, what it's like to see real poverty for the first time, seeing old stuff for the first time, etc. It got me into Duke.

They know that your kid is over-privileged and rich already. They'd probably rather admit all the kids who have struggled with real adversity, but those people tend not to have any money, so they're a minority. Your kid's chances are better than you think!