Reply to Should you really avoid an activity as a main essay topic?

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[quote=Anonymous]I was on AN for my older kid.  I think the essay advice comes from how she, herself, read and remembered the essays.  This could easily be different from another AO, so you should use your judgment.  But I found it useful to hear about how an actual AO viewed these thigns.

Her point was that if the applicant writes about, say, swimming in their supplement on 'how I overcame a challenge' or 'what's a community that's important to me' and then also in their main essay then she would breeze over the main essay assuming it was the same stuff a second time. Essentially, a lost chance to say something new about themselves.

She also says that the it helps to be 'memorable' in the application process and "the kid who keeps pet snakes' is more memorable than "the kid who overcame a challenge on the swim team."  It's not that keeping pet snakes is a desirable trait; it's that you remember the kid (and whatever lesson they learned from their snake) and that's a good thing in the admissions process.  And hopefully, that lesson you learned from teh snake comports with the overall 'story' of the application so you come away with an idea of who the kid is and not just what their resume is.[/quote]

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