How important is staying on topic?

Colleges & Universities Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>I’m having trouble with the explain how your parents/community/city ect… has shaped your life prompt. I don’t have any essay worthy anecdotes from really any of those forces except for my parents, but their role has largely been one of encouragement, and while I am thankful that they didn’t try to shove anything that i wasn’t interested in down my throat, from the standpoint of writing this essay it doesn’t give me much to talk about because in the end they didn’t do all that much “shaping of my dreams and aspirations,” they left that up to me.</p>

<p>Whenever I try to write a draft for this essay I end up with one sort of weak, forced-into-the-paper-just-so-I-can-address-part-of-the-prompt paragraph followed by two decidedly better paragrpahs about the specifics of my dreams and aspirations.</p>

<p>But there is very little connection between those two different parts of my essay </p>

<p>-The connection being</p>

<p>From: My parents encourage my interests
To: Speaking of interests, I am really passionate about _________ (except because my parents are sort of neutral rather than super supportive about _________, I don’t have any real tie in anecdotes so it really feels mashed together… and by no anecdotes I mean I cant really even address their neutral-ness rather than supportive-ness towards that interest as part of the paper, so yea it ends up being one of those really weak segues [segways?] like: Snowboarding is fun… speaking of snow, it never snows in Costa Rica…)</p>

<p>I know I did a bad job of explaining the disconnect between my two real examples. It would probably be better for the purpose of this post to just imagine that the disconnect was of snowboard/never snows in Costa Rica levels…</p>

<p>Sooo anyway, I have this disconnect, and its difficult for me to keep my essay grounded in the spirit of the prompt, however I have a lot to say about _________ (the dreams and aspirations part) despite not having much about the first part of the prompt, and so I was wondering:</p>

<p>How far is it OK to deviate from the “spirit” of the prompt?</p>

<p>It feels like this prompt is intended to explain how external influences have shaped your dreams and aspirations, and it seems like I would be “breaking the spirit” of the prompt if I sort of left out the external influences part.</p>

<p>So yea… how much of an admissions officer frowny face would I get if I wrote to an “extremely liberal” interpretation of the prompt, and really only wrote about my passion in the context of my dreams and aspirations?</p>

2

<p>Okay, let me say this first: I can hardly comprehend things you’re talking about except for half of the last sentence and the title of the topic.
And my answer is: Yes, it is important. You must address what they ask for. Come on, there must be incentive that motivated you to choose a major in MIT, or dream of doing something extraordinary, or change your lifestyle, etc.</p>

3

<p>You have a prompt and a space in which to answer it. Yes, you need to answer the question.</p>

<p>You only have 250 words. Yes, you should probably stay on topic.</p>

<p>If you’re asking ‘is it OK if I write about something else,’ if you want to get into MIT, you should actually fill out the application correctly. This includes answering the questions that they’ve asked you.</p>

<p>If you think you’re off-topic, you probably are.</p>

4

<p>First off, no weird flowery language. You want to be concise and to the point.</p>

<p>So you’re saying, in your community, no one. not your teachers, mentors, private tutors for music or whatever, boy scouts leader, forensics coach. no one really shaped your life. you aren’t affected at all by your city’s culture, the diversity of your city that you hang out in (or lack thereof). Your parents never encouraged you to do a certain hobby, or encouraged you to continue with something you’ve found a passion for.</p>

<p>There’s something. You just need to think what’s been a factor into making you who you are today.</p>

<p>Ask if you need anything else.</p>

5

<p>hey, does anyone else play tennis?</p>

<p>so yeah, stay on topic.</p>