Do colleges like "sob stories"?

juillet
Mon, 20 Mar 2017 16:51:04 +0000

I’m going to be the dissenter and say no, I don’t think it would be a good essay. Or rather, I think it would be really, really difficult to do it well. These essays often end up being more about the parent than the student themselves, and they have the double whammy of sounding negative.

And unless you’ve already done a lot of pre-work to study psychology and/or neuroscience - or you spent/spend a lot of time as the caretaker of your father - there’s not a whole lot that you can say about yourself in this story.

And if you use it as a positive, there’s the danger of it sounding like an unnecessary prop or framing for a story that could’ve been better without it.

I suppose it could be done, but it would have to be really well-written to avoid the trap. If you have some time, you may want to try several drafts to see how it feels and f you can craft the tone you want, and show it to some outside readers to see if you’re striking the note you want to.