Since I've now graduated and am heading off to college, I wanted to share my common app essays. I remember how amazingly stressful it was during senior year worrying about essays and polishing and re-polishing stuff, so I thought it might help you guys give some ideas/brainstorming clues about essays if I shared mine with you guys.
If it's worth anything, this essay got me into Dartmouth, Williams (early write), Swarthmore (early write), Pomona, U of Notre Dame, BU and Macalester.
Disclaimer: Strangely, it seems to be
very popular with liberal-arts colleges or liberal-arts style institutions, but not so much with big research-themed universities as all of my rejections/waitlists came from big research universities (including Cornell...which I didn't really understand). *laugh*
If you're interested, PM me. 