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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Nonsense. Compelling narratives, in literature, film/tv, and in college essays, need a hardship to overcome. That’s not to say that the hardship needs to be a tragedy but “the everyday” is generally somewhat mundane.[/quote]

Just what an admissions officer wants: 5,000 essays on the "hardship" of not making the lacrosse team.

You have this exactly backwards. The best essay most high schoolers (who have not dealt with true hardships in life) can write are reflections on mundane things.

Pick up one of those collections of "best" college essays, and what will strike you is how the topics are really quite ordinary. Two I still remember from a collection I read [b]many years ago  are (1) a girl who wrote about her father's death--but she didn't write about the experience of losing him per se, she wrote a narrative about the year anniversary of his death and how she put on her father's old coat to go wear to the cemetery and how it felt to dig her hands deep into the pockets of it[/b] and (2) a boy who wrote on the topic of "the best advice he'd ever received," which for him was when he was a young kid standing in the middle of the street and a car pulled up and the driver yelled, "move your ass!" and how that advice--to get moving--was really the best. :-D These are the types of essays that are memorable. [/quote]
Funny... the only "best" essay example I read back when I was a HS or college student was very similar. The girl's father had passed away and she told the story about a sweater (of his?) that had holes. And the last sentence was something like ."...and I like the holes" (since it reminded her of him). I recall thinking that the essay was good, but that it was not an essay that most other applicants would be in a position to write. It wasn't a phenomenal essay, but it was one where the student wrote about a personal tragedy and used some symbolism. And because there are so many essay-writing-help services out there, it makes me think that unless the student has done a lot of creative writing activity, the idea of talking about a tragedy but through the eyes of a mundane garment given sentimental meaning is perhaps formulaic and coached at this point. That said, I don't think my essays were anything amazing--I think I spoke of a favorite trip, and let my GPAs and SATs cover for my lack of an amazing essay.[/quote]

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