<p>Personal Statements for 2006-07 Application </p>
<p>Pablo Picasso said, “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” Write about a time when rather than being handed an answer, you had to work it out for yourself. What did you learn from the process?</p>
<p>James Joyce wrote in “Dubliners,” “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” Describe a mistake or mistaken idea of your own that led to a discovery.</p>
<p>An old expression says, “what is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.” Give an example of a time when you made a choice that was not popular, but you felt was right. Why did you make this choice? What happened as a result?</p>
<h2>The last two lines of Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” are: “I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference.” Discuss an instance when you departed from your plan while pursuing research, independent work, or a non-academic activity. What difference did it make?</h2>
<p>The thing is, I really want to right an essay about risk; the topic works with all the other schools that I’m applying to. Now, I was thinking about maybe reworking my essay to fit one of the questions, but I just don’t think the essay will make sense. I know none of you have even glanced at my essay, but could some of you veterans of the admission game give me some advice? Does Northwestern penalize (as in not admit) students that don’t follow the essay prompts/questions? Thanks, everyone.</p>
<p>Maybe I am not understanding the “risk” you want to discuss-but I would think any of those topics could be used to discuss taking a risk (the road less traveled…, making an unpopular choice…, instead of being handed an answer, you worked it for for yourself…). All of these lend themselves to taking risk.</p>
<p>I would defintitely answer one of their topics…just mold your essay to one of the prompts. Write from your heart, not what you think they want to hear, and you can’t go wrong…</p>
<p>Applying to colleges sucks. It sucks really hard. I didn’t do it until the last minute. Literally, in some instances. Write the best “risk” you can without giving regard to the NU essay prompts. Then go back and see if you can make it fit. If not, then write another essay. Start early. I’m a sack of **** when it comes to deadlines- I barely made or possibly missed a couple for colleges and I think it may have contributed to me getting waitlisted. I agree with the first response, however, that most of those topics lend themselves to your topic nicely.</p>
<p>On another note, if you’re writing about risk in general, I think your title should be “Risky Business”. That would be hella cool.</p>
<p>I’m sure you could fit “Risk” into the Robert Frost prompt if that risk deviating from a plan or something.</p>
<p>One thing I’d like to know is how they got that prompt from that particular poem. Wasn’t the “Road Less Traveled” all about doing something differently than others? It didn’t seem like it’d have anything to do with a plan. Maybe from the phrase “made all the difference?”</p>
<p>somebodynew-that is what that quote is about…departing from a “plan”</p>
<p>Also-IvyLeague…you don’t have to be so literal. Use your creativity and imagination. You need to interpret the prompts to mold them to what you want to write about.</p>
<p>I wrote only one college essay last year. I wrote about an experience I had with a childhood [longterm] project, and how when it failed, I lost everything and had to start over. I somehow stretched that to fit into NU’s “Realizing the crisis and seizing the opportunity” essay. It seemed like they were pretty lenient with it.</p>
<p>My essay was basically the same thing for every college – just tweaked a bit. It was based mostly on the Common Application question, and I just tweaked it a bit to fit last year’s question with the butterfly – the one where something small had big effects. </p>
<p>…And my essay basically described a car crash. A very small one. In my garage. -_- Dude, in the NU essay I talked about Newton’s Laws. I have no clue how NU took that. </p>
<p>But yeah, IvyLeague…if you tweak it right and make it creative, NU should be fine. It did with me. @_@</p>
<p>Presidential Classroom, NYLC, other Youth Leadership Conferences. </p>
<p>In a nutshell, do many students attend? Now, even though this may be a rumor, I heard that many students who attend such programs end up writing their college essay(s) about it. I’ve already written an essay about the programs and its impact; nevertheless, I still have another essay idea (the risk one). Should I follow through on a potentially banal essay topic for top tier schools? Thanks, everyone.</p>
<p>I think that essays about leadership conferences are overused. of course, there are ways to write them very well and have a unique personal touch to them, but it’s difficult and not worth the risk if you have another, more interesting essay topic to write about.</p>