<p>I wrote about Disney movies and their affect on my life.
I think it worked for me, I got notes about it on my acceptance letters. :)</p>
<p>A cardboard boat race. </p>
<p>Into Rice (full tuition), Columbia, Cornell, Penn, WL @ MIT.</p>
<p>I wrote my essay kind of story-like and a bit satirical about my trip to Nigeria.</p>
<p>I wrote about chilli/eating spicy food -> related it to my experience studying away from home for 4 years.</p>
<p>I submitted this essay to seven schools, accepted at MHC, waitlisted at Conncoll, rejected everywhere else. Then again, I am international student asking for a sh-tload of aid, so that probably mattered more than my essay… I quite liked my essay, I think it really showed my personality. Very light-hearted and easy to read.</p>
<p>Write like how you would write in your own journal/blog.</p>
<p>This is a good article about writing a winning college essay: [College</a> Essays | College Tidbits](<a href=“http://collegetidbits.com/wordpress/category/college-essays/]College”>http://collegetidbits.com/wordpress/category/college-essays/)</p>
<p>I wrote about how I almost got shot</p>
<p>Elevators.</p>
<p>Got me into UChicago and Cornell</p>
<p>You know what, it really won’t help you by getting topics off of other people…the thing to do is, just start brainstorming. What things would you want to tell the admissions committee about yourself? I could be practically anything—an experience? Or even a weird hobby of yours…Everyone is different and everyone has personal experiences. So technically, everyone can write a really interesting essay. Make it yours and don’t make it sound artificial by writing in all these big scientific words, etc. Be yourself and show the best of yourself. My topics came to mind at the most randomest moments. I just took time to freewrite. From there, I got a good idea of what points i’d like to highlight. Make your essay unique, short, sweet, powerful, creative, and memorable. But don’t take this tip as any pressure. Just let your imagination and quirkiness flow…</p>
<p>I wrote about the geography bee, which many people advised against on this forum, and got into H, JHU, CMU, and NYU</p>
<p>i wrote about totaling my car haha…got into the cornell with sub-par grades/sats too! </p>
<p>but it honestly impacted me alot as a person which is why i wrote about it, plus i could turn it humorous :)</p>
<p>i had two common app essays, because i used one for a supplement. </p>
<p>the first was about sex education. </p>
<p>the second was about race, and how i delt with race issues (not really racism) at camp and at school. </p>
<p>these explanations don’t do my essays any justice. </p>
<p>i got into haverford, carleton, macalester, bates, colby, grinnell, kenyon and Pitt.</p>
<p>i wrote about my parents and how they’ve influenced my life. instead of focusing on being like crazy unique and outstanding, i just tried to write elegantly and honestly. the topic may be cliched and not particularly interesting, but it got me into brown and jhu. if you want to read, pm me.</p>
<p>For my main essay, I wrote about my accent (I’m moved to the US a few years ago).</p>
<p>For my supplemental one, I wrote about soccer and how much I love it :)</p>
<p>I got into Harvard, UPenn, Columbia, Brown, Duke and some other places. Just write about anything that makes you stand out or anything you really love. If you’re passionate about something, it shows in your writing.
As a sidenote, I had two typos in my Harvard essay (it was the first app I sent out and none of the five proofreaders I used caught the typos) and I still got in. So don’t panic if anything like that happens to you :)</p>
<p>It LITERALLY - yes, LITERALLY - can be about anything.</p>
<p>A common approach is tying in a relatively mundane item or event into a greater realization or knowledge that shows your “self”.</p>
<p>The dramatic situations seem to be much less popular, and possibly less effective if it focuses on the event rather than the insights.</p>
<p>I wrote the forward to a future book that I will be writing after I invent an awesome alternative energy source.</p>
<p>Wrote about my passion (Astronomy) and framed it under a single moment in time when I stargazed with my telescope alone in my backyard. The writing style and the subject really showed how I regard the world in relation to the aesthetics of science. Anyway…this essay is only one of the many components of my profile. I think it helped but many other things like grades probably weighed more. I got into Brown, Georgetown, Wesleyan, Middlebury, Lehigh, BU, and some others. The only school I got rejected from is Yale but oh well!</p>
<p>My tip would be to write about a single “frame” or event in your life, instead of trying to write about an event that happened over a period of time.</p>
<p>Also, revise, revise, revise and DON’T procrastinate. I started brainstorming life events for my essay topic at least a month before and went through at least 10 copies before I was satisfied. Mull over details, no matter how small. I would go over every single word and look for synonyms to see if they would make the essay “flow” better. Good luck on those apps!</p>
<p>(Btw I got acceptance ED to NYU Stern)</p>
<p>Write something that no one else could write but you!! It can be anything, but it must be unique and stand out!</p>
<p>I wrote about me having a convesation with a diety. Got me into Northwestern and Rice. The admissions officer at Case Western even called me to tell me how much she loved my essay.</p>
<p>I agree that you should revise it a ton. I wrote this originally for an English class and it probably would have ticked people off in that state. I rewrote it about 20 times.</p>
<p>Is this an overused topic?
I want to talk about how flawed people are in society (materialism in teenagers, greed, laziness from teachers, obesity) and how this is defining our generation. The key message is how I’m nostalgic for the past because when we grow up, we’re exposed to so many flaws and that’s the point in our life when we realize them.</p>
<p>Even though this is representing how I see the world, does it necessarily represent who I am?</p>
<p>Also thanks for all the advice! It has helped =)</p>