Reply to PSA: Don't write your essay about building huts in Africa!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]On the flip side, my kid wrote a sports essay (not about performance but what leadership on a team looks like)  and was accepted early to his two top choices (one top 20 and 1 highly sought after OOS flagship).

I only say this bc I think some topics are not as taboo as they are said to be.

I also would probably not write about a pay to play service trip though. [/quote]

It's all in how you write the essay.  And yes, anything that is obviously "pay to play" should not be part of an essay---AO can see thru that and the privilege[/quote]

+1 the essay is about who you are. Most topics can work but the "no pay-to-play" experiences seems to be pretty universal advice.

One of DS's best supplemental essays was about community service but specifically about how he liked doing one small job at a regular monthly event because it was the one job where he could talk with and get to know the people being served, seeing the same people every month and building relationships. That one was done fairly late in the process and it would have been great if he'd written it sooner because I think it would have made a much better common app essay (with some expansion) than the IMO pretty generic "first job" essay he did. [tip if you are stuck on essay topics -- early on look at the supplements you'll need to write, they are often more specific in topic request and can provide a jumping off point]

DD's common app essay is hard to describe but touched on her creative writing and art and using her imagination to build worlds and then tied that to her love of natural places and preserving those worlds. IMO it did a good job of explaining her two passions, was very unique, and definitely very much her. In brainstorming, that topic came from thinking about objects that are important to her -- her art/writing notebook.[/quote]

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