I am applying to a non selective liberal arts college (Greensboro College to be exact) and I really need merit scholarships, so I decided to write the personal statement. The prompt is explain some extenuating circumstances or a personality trait that might influence our admissions decision. The issue is, I don’t know where to start. I talked to an advisor and she mentioned writing about how I have “a vibrant personality” and how I am “community oroentated” and she suggested looking up other values of the school. I think she was somewhat helpful, as GC is very community oriented. I think I am somewhat community oriented, but maybe I am not because I have no examples of how I am. I am involved in student government and interact club, but other than that I pretty much stick to myself & study. I make great grades but I don’t want to write a boring essay about how I am hardworking, because I would hope they could assume that from my application. Please give me ideas. Maybe if you have an example of an essay prompt about a personality trait, you would send it my way.
This is what I did with my son who had to write a similar essay. I had him read the prompt and then I had a normal conversation with him about it. I asked to to think of ways that he could answer it and then asked him to explain more. He wrote down his initial reactions and answered and then built an outline and expanded upon it to fill out the essay. During our talk he found out that he really did a lot and was having a sort of writers block due to the pressure of having to write the essay.