<p>"Complete two out of three, max. 500 words each</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Evaluate a significant risk you have taken or ethical dilemma you have faced and discuss its impact on you.</p></li>
<li><p>Discuss some issue of local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.</p></li>
<li><p>Tell us about a book, artwork, or lab experiment that changed the way you see the world. What was it about the work that affected you? How did your world become different?"</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I was thinking for the 2nd choice writing about the oil spill and how I feel about it. And for the 3rd choice, I was thinking of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Would either/both of these be kind of clich</p>
<p>…When brainstorming what to write, it’s important to steer clear of taboo essay topics. There are certain subjects–national disasters, homeland visits and sex–from which applicants should steer clear, unless they have a unique and personal perspective. “People are going to write about the oil spill now, or they used to write 9/11 a lot … It’s sort of hard to write about something in the public consciousness,” Cohen says. "Stay away from writing the ‘trip to the homeland’ essay. It’s a hard essay to do well, and it happens to be clich</p>
<p>When it says issue, does that have to be an issue such as the rainforests dying, an oil spill, a financial crisis, etc. Or can it be something more abstract. A decline in manners, a lack of innovation, etc.</p>