<p>I believe it may be harmful to write such an essay. Isn’t it possible that people who know you - parents, teachers, couselors, friends, etc. - are more likely to cry than adcoms who know you only by the words you write in that one page margin of space and the numbers you produced during your 4 years of high school? What are the chances that adcoms will cry like the aforementioned individuals? Even worse, wouldn’t it leave a bad impression on adcoms if they didn’t cry? Like you were trying to get an emotional response to entice them or something? Don’t get me wrong, though. I love reading moving essays and stories, but aren’t college essays supposed to say something about yourself whilst trying to avoid too much sentiment? I’m not saying we shouldn’t add ANY sentiment, which would in fact be a very detrimental thing to do. I’m asking if adding so much emotion that the essay makes people cry is a bad thing.</p>
<p>Id say, if you really really think you have the gift of writting and you are really good at adressing those “crying” feelings, then go for it and it will make them cry.</p>
<p>If you are not that good, then dont do it. They won’t cry, they will be bored and you will be considered a fake, a wanna be and a bad writer.</p>
<p>Well I know this has NOTHING to do with your topic but, I’ve cried at someones essay (btw im a HS Senior). I peeked over at this girl in my grade’s essay, well lets just say…shes been through ALOT of tough times. I even felt bad for laughing at the jokes people made on her back in middle school. So I think its possible to make someone cry at your essay, but prolly not adcoms, because they have probably seen BILLIONS of those “tough time” essays.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies! I probably can’t write an essay like that, so I’m not even going to try. I was just wondering and yeah, in my imagination, adcoms are all 7-feet-tall shadowy robots who feel no sentiment. But, it’s obviously untrue. They’ve all probably read millions of tearjerkers so another one just seems kind of lame and trite I guess. Is it more important, then, to focus an essay on the lessons and impact of overcoming a difficult challenge instead of describing in detail the actual difficulty of the challenge? For instance, I can say a challenge is tough by stating what it is and emphasizing its difficulty by comparing it to my personal situation, but a hardship would be a lot more emphasized by adding emotion and whatnot.</p>
<p>I’m getting nervous. I’ve yet to polish my main essay and there’s only 12 days before JHU’s ED deadline :(</p>