Mention controversial interest in essay - or sanitize it?

Mwfan1921
Sat, 26 Jul 2025 20:19:29 +0000

fiftyfifty1:

it’s all just another hoop to jump through that allows them to justify selecting kids with paid college counselors who teach them the secret handshake to writing these dumb essays.

There is no secret way to write a college essay. If any counselor tells one that, they should run in the other direction.

In the big picture, relatively few schools care about the common app essay. Some don’t even read them, including uber selectives like Northwestern. Some have their own essays, which tend to focus more on why a certain major or other quite specific prompts, like the UC PIQs.

It looks like OP is applying to a bunch of the UCs so I would recommend they follow the very specific PIQ directions that the UCs publish. Some will also run virtual sessions to help guide the process. Again, there are no secrets.

Beyond giving OP the resources I already did, I didn’t post in this thread. Generally, I wouldn’t write about ECs. I also wouldn’t write about what one liked when they were a kid, unless it’s limited to a sentence or two and is directly applicable to who the student is today.

With that said, nearly anything can make a good common app essay. I think some students struggle with writing about themselves, which is understandable. They’ve been drilled in how to write in the five paragraph format which these essays definitely are not, and that’s immediately apparent if on reads the many free resources at reputable sites like the college essay guy, or the various college sites.

For OP, I would write a story that communicates who they are. As a person, friend, family member, student, anonymous poster online, whatever. Don’t overthink it. Keep it simple.