<p>Crossfire,
I couldn’t reply privately because I haven’t been on CC long enough.
My son really wanted to go back to Illinois, too. (He was born in Urbana and left after 3rd grade. We moved to the state of Oregon.) He was not at all excited about looking at colleges until the topic of UIUC having an excellent Engineering school came up. He visited the school and he decided that was definitely where he wanted to go. He is so happy to be back home and is doing very well this year.
I would suggest that you use your essay for item #28 (“anything else we should be aware of when looking at your application”). Keep the essay very positive and don’t make it sound in any way like you are desperate or are begging or pleading to let you return to Illinois. There are numerous comments throughout College Confidential that give the advice to not sound desperate and not to beg (Look them up). Please follow this advise!!! Instead, use it as an add-on message (ie.,question #28). They will understand your message without you sounding desperate. Again, reread it to make sure that you are not begging. Also ask a teacher to read it for content and to check for spelling or grammar errors.
I strongly recommend that you go to the bookstore and look at the books with examples of college essays. Many of the essays are on topics completely unrelated to school and extracurriculars. The essay questions are pretty open ended so they lend themselves to any topic. Think about what you have done, choose a story from one of your experience and write an honest essay that speaks who you are. It could be as simple as one interaction that you had with a young kid while volunteering at the library. Let your writing show your personality.</p>