Is this essay topic too controversial?

Denzera
Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:40:13 +0000

I disagree that it’s been done to death - well, it may have, but there is still some room for personalization. Remember, what you’re trying to do is show a side of you that is uniquely “you” and describes something memorable and specific about your background that informs why you would be a good student. That’s the goal here.

To that end, if you can talk about specific situations and how you learned to deal with the category of (say) homophobia in the South, and perhaps changed some people’s minds and got them to support you, then you probably have something meaningful to say about yourself. If the essay boils down to “there are lots of rednecks here and it sucks for me!”, then obviously it’s not going to fly at all. But the same could be said about many other styles of content-free essays.