<p>I think it would be valuable to distinguish bertween a sports essay that is a student writing sample of which the topic is sports-related, and an insightful essay inspired by an experience within the realm of sports. In the first category would be the essay that describes your best/worst game, the day you scored the winning touchdown in the state championship, or how your involvement in sports made you a team player or taught you perseverance/self-discipine/fill-in-the-blank. If you changed the name on one of the latter essays, it could have been written by hundreds, if not thousands. of other student athletes. Bland topics like that are not a good idea for ANYONE applying to a top school, and so they’re not a good idea for a recruited athlete either. But for an athlete, a stereotypical sports essay could make the adcoms think the kid is a “dumb jock” at worst, or a one-dimensional applicant at best.</p>
<p>In the other category, though, would be a more individual, personalized reflection about an incident which happened to have occurred within the student’s sports experience: perhaps a humorous or personality-illuminating anecdote or an interesting analysis of some sports-related dynamic. I think this is acceptable. When the adcoms say the essay should show something about the applicant that can’t be inferred already from the application, they don’t mean it has to be some hidden secret. Chances are if the student were to write about volunteering for a charity or his science research instead, then that involvement would have also been listed already somewhere on the application too. The idea is that the essay should reveal something unique about the student. </p>
<p>My D spent many years involved in music, drama, church activities, and sports other than the one for which she was recruited. But a lot of those activities had been necessarily pared away by the time she was a high school junior, and the vast majority of her time was then dedicated to her sport. So in her case, writing about something else would have been the equivalent of her “B Game,” to use stemit’s apropos analogy. However, D’s sport was year-round and rather intensive at the type of high school she attended. There will be athletes whose experience and time commitment is different, and thus who might have been able to maintain a significant, passionate involvement in something other than their recruited sport. If so, then write about that if you can. But if not, then I’m with stemit on this one. Stick with what you know.</p>
<p>D was recruited by the Ivies and top schools like Duke, Georgetown, and Stanford. She was accepted by the only two schools where she submitted applications, both in the HYPS group. The coach of the school she chose told me that admissions absolutely loved D. And guess what? Her main essay was about something that happened to her at a sport competition. The parent of another child on the team told me his D wrote about what being on her team had taught her about life and love. So, I don’t believe that a sports topic is the kiss of death if it’s done well.</p>