<p>I am interested in hearing what others said in their optional essay. Which one did you choose to write about and what was your approach to the question?</p>
<p>I actually chose to write the first optional essay topic as my common app. It’s about this book (duh) and how it made me realize my heritage and how it made me connect to my family. I thought it was pretty interesting, though it was kind of simple.</p>
<p>lol well if it helps, for my common app essay, i wrote about how my grandfather would sometimes annoy me, but then my dad told me to read his autobiography (which is in Russian). All of a sudden I knew what my grandpa’s thoughts were about his life in the holocaust, difficult immigration, the night of his son’s (my father’s!) birth…but the whole thing was actually OPTIMISTIC, though you’d think he’d be really negative about most of his hard life. It made me realize that we have a lot in common b/c we’re both optimists and writers. So I think that I took the dreaded “writing about a grandparent” essay and made it work, and hey, I got in. LOL.</p>