I’m at the point where I’m beginning to write essays for the ever so great college applications. I’m wondering, from the topic on “Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you,” whether or not I should either a) talk about provocative or b) stay to the cliched and juvenile stuff like “I wish world hunger would stop…” BS.
A College Education lets you spot a cliche from 20 miles away, Id avoid them for these guys. Being original and genuine is your best bet, as is uh, taking the question seriously.
Probably neither. If you go with the provocative, you have the chance that you might upset one of the admissions people, and if the college has to choose between a large number of applicants that might be enough to tip you into the reject pile. Conversely you can’t really go with the obvious stuff (death is bad!) because they already have to read a million and two boring essays. Obscure and somewhat provocative is probably the way to go; you get the benefits of having and interesting essay without having to worry about the graders having any strong feelings on the topic.
Having been accepted to Stanford for this coming fall, I can tell you that you should definitely be anything but cliched and juvenile. The college will get thousands of essays and look for those that stand out. Cliches do not stand out. Something uniquely provocative will. Try to write something that will give the college high impressions of your knowledge, thoughtfulness, integrity and diligence. Purposefully writing something cliched just to appease them will only show them that you conform at the price of being true to yourself.
Yes, and according to a guy who came to talk at my speech, stay away from sports as a metaphor for life. They hate that. Not that you’re doing that, because you said you were doing an issue of some kind, but that’s merely one example of how they loathe the hackneyed. Also try to be sincere, and not phony, because they’re good at spotting that.
I’m not sure how they feel about provocative. Perhaps it would depend on the college itself- like are you applying to places with a conservative bent, or more liberal?
Er, make that, a guy who came to talk at my school, who was an admissions officer at NYU…Sorry for the lapse there.
You could write about flaws in the college admissions process…might syke the hell out of them. 
Speaking as someone who wrote two of the worst essays imaginable*, I don’t think you should worry. It’s not going to make or break you unless it’s either pulitzer-prizewinning material or riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.
*I had to write 2 for Amherst. One was so obviously not me (I am conservative, but the wording was overdone-hippie-touchy-feely) and the second contained the line “Socrates said, know thyself”. :eek:
oh, and Mercury and Zoggie, the trend in college admissions lately is “diversity”. If you really want to think in extremes, a provocative essay would help him a lot more than a cliched one, IMHO. I think the general movement (except with UNC or highly-religious schools) is leaving behind the days where a student would be rejected for disagreeing with an admissions officer.
As another person who recently went through the process, let me be the first to congratulate you on taking the initiative to do them now. Before long you’ll be caught up in school again and they’ll be put on the back burner. My friend, who shall remain anonymous, had to do his Penn essay at the last minute. 246 words, about 20 of those “opportunity.” Most god-awful piece of crap I ever saw. He would’ve been rejected anyway, but doing them now saves you A LOT of stress. So good for you. I finished one of the three essays I used for most of my applications (Go Common App! Common App is your friend, remember that) I got into 4 schools and was rejected from 3, and I had the same essays for most of them.
Other advice:
Don’t write off a place that easily. Next year I’m going to the school I would’ve ranked 7th of the 7 places I applied to, and 4th of the 4 I got into before I visited it. They had a great honors program, I got a huge scholarship (which I used to leverage my parents into a 50 dollar per week allowance :D), it’s in Washington, DC, where I wanted to be all along and I liked the people I met there. If I had to do it over again I’d apply to even more places, see what other diamonds in the rough I could find. You’ll find out that the common app will make your life infinitessimally easier.
Listen to your guidance counselor: You’re the 8517th or so person she’s (or he’s, but I had a she so I’ll stick to that) helped get into college. She knows more than you, she knows pretty much everything about the process, and has endless resources. If you talk to her she’ll get to know you and help you even more, so try to have an informal chat session. Listen to what she has to say, if she really thinks you should apply somewhere then go for it, especially if it’s on the common app.
Visit!: Not just before you apply but after as well. Deciding to apply somewhere isn’t that big of a decision. But I never would’ve ended up where I did if I hadn’t gone on the prospective student overnight. Once those acceptances start rolling in make sure you go to as many as you can. Before you decide on a place you really should spend a night there.
I might think of stuff later. Good luck and tell us what happens.
The main thing would be to thoroughly proofread your essay before submitting it.
Well, I’d start off by thinking about some actual issue (personal, local, etc) that actually is important to you and write on it, whether or not it is mundane or controversial. I’ve had to go through admissions essays before and, quite frankly, the worst are the ones that appear insincere and like a bunch of bullshit. I want to know what is important to you - can you THINK about these issues - not can you simply get words on to a page.
Don’t be cliched and juvenile on purpose, obviously, but why be provocative on purpose?.
Pick a topic you care about. I wouldn’t avoid a topic because many people have a strong, opposite opinion from your own. I think that if you an write a well thought out essay on some topic in which it is clear from that essay that you are sincere and that this topic is important to you, along with displaying some original thought, you will be fine - even if you think the topic is mundane or cliche. World hunger may seem like a cliche but it isn’t a bad cause to be very concerned about and original, refreshing thought on that topic must always be a nice breath of fresh air. Gee, that made it all sound so easy, didn’t it?
Best of luck to you!
Tibs.
I agree with Tib. Find something that has directly affected your life, and tell them how, why, what and where of that relationship. It can be on absolutely anything - did the USA PATRIOT Act allow a distant relative of yours to be deported or worse? Did the installation of that traffic light in town cause you to consistently be late to school for a month? Did the invention of Code Red Mountain Dew get you so wired for an exam that you got far below your expected grade?
Make it serious, make it real, throw some humor into it (wisely…), and make it show who you are. If you’re a renaissance man who knows three languages and sculpts on the side, or if you’re a pasty-skinned geek who’s seen every Three Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place eighteen times, showing the admissions office who you are, and that you know yourself are the main points that are going to make that essay a good one.
And if you’re applying to Michigan, just turn something in with your name on it. They award very little points for a good essay versus a bad essay (1 point total). Being involved in a club gets you around 50 points.
During the school year, I work as a work study in the admissions office at a well-known university. (It rhymes with Mollumbia). I’ve heard some brutal comments directed at the cliched essays. Ditto for the cloyingly inspirational and the overly narcassistic. Be creative and choose an esoteric topic…but stay away from anything that feels " gimicky." They can spot those a mile off.
Concrete concrete concrete, specific, specific, specific.
I don’t know college admissions essayss, but I know adolecent writing, and the most common problem you find with “bright” writers is a tendency to think that grand generalities sound more serious and profound than lots of concrete, specific detail. Don’t write an essay on Why TV is Bad, write an essay on how TVs should be moved from the family room to the bedroom; don’t write an essay on how with great power comes great responsibility, write about how you managed to save a kid’s life during a routine babysitting assignment. Don’t write about how the more things change, the more things stay the same, write about your grandmother’s 16th birthday party. The smaller and more specific your topic, the more your essay will stand out.