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Is it better to write on a topic like overcoming a physical handicap (requiring surgery and painful physical therapy) with detail and emotion or on a broad topic such as diversity (common app essay topic)
with multiple examples drawing on ethnicity, very minor physical handicap, study abroad experience ...
The first essay will be more powerful... my voice ... makes me a strong person who can handle adversity in a meaningful way.
The second tells how my diversity can contribute to the college student body...
Please help me decide. This will be my common app essay.
Write drafts for both topics, then see which turned out better. Even a really good topic can be hard to turn into a good essay, and a boring topic can end up great. You might have a feeling of which will be better, but you can't really know until you have written it.
The topic that allows you to be the most personal, detailed, honest and revealing about yourself is the better topic imo.
From the way you described both essays, it sounds like the first one--the one that has "my voice"--may be more promising.
(Note also like that discussion of a physical handicap in topic #1 will also show, without so stating explicitly, that you will contribute to diversity.)
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