<p>Several colleges require a graded, expositional essay to be submitted as part of their supplement. For an essay for English class, I am assigned to write a 10 page essay arguing for an original thesis about a social or political topic. If I write my essay in support of anarchism, will this in any way hurt me? I’m sure I can write a killer essay about the specific topic I have in mind but the likelihood that the person reading my essay will agree with me is not very high.</p>
<p>I do not want to argue about anarchism in this thread because I’m not even really an anarchist, I just have a very good idea for an essay.</p>
<p>I’m just curious - which colleges are you looking at? I don’t think any of my supplements asked for anything other than a personal, “tell us about yourself” essay.</p>
<p>If your essay is well-written and professional, I cannot imagine that any admissions officer would hold your topic against you. They might even be impressed that you took a difficult stance on the issue.</p>
<p>As far as Reed is concerned, it is a mandatory requirement, so you should take it seriously and send in a paper that best represents you academically. They want to see how you think, write and analyse so if you feel your paper on Anarchism would represent you best, go ahead and submit it. Reed actually has a soft spot for Anarchism, and unconventionalism, in general so there are no rules to play by.</p>
<p>For Hamilton, I believe it’s a requirement only in lieu of SATs. Therefore, if you feel your academic writing represents you better than your SATs, then use the paper to leverage your position, but otherwise stick with the SATs. By and large though, academic research is largely dispassionate and follows logic, so it’s not like you’re espousing what you’re researching-I think colleges that require the graded writing supplement should understand that, but I’m not sure about a place like Hamilton, so don’t take my word for it.</p>