This is officially my favorite post of the year! I would definitely contribute to an “honest essay” thread ; )
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I really dislike why essays. Particularly for very large state schools. Sure, maybe there has a well thought curated answer for your number 1 or 2 school, but for the rest of them it’s really just “I will be ok here, and that is fine enough.”
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For us this would be (Clemson): when I was visiting I walked down the street and this guy said “‘sup” and that was really friendly and I want to be with friendly people.
We joke, but that actually WAS the defining moment of his visit - random guy who was talking with his friend pausing his conversation to greet us.
Topics at least I thought of:
For Va Tech essay about tell us about a time you faced bias or were discriminated against: this has literally never happened, I’m an upper middle class, straight, Christian, white male. I am the epitome of generic.
Why UCONN (they don’t ask this, but if they did): Basketball
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My kid would have the same reaction to that Clemson experience, and I kind of get it.
The VT short answers essays are tough. That is one of the two schools my son has left to submit by 11/15. This is a reach school for him, and we have not yet visited, but I have a feeling he would really like it. They also have two different majors that he is interested in, one of which has a pretty high acceptance rate, comparatively. But needing to complete these 4 short answers may turn him away from applying. The discrimination one is particularly tricky. He is just so done (I am too).
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My D23 had a similar reaction when she was asked to apply for a diversity scholarship for a certain college. She’s half Asian and wrote an essay about how she was just a typical teenager that sometimes was annoyed when people assumed she was good at math and played the violin. I thought it was a great essay but she (shockingly 
) did not get the scholarship.
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I totally agree with how hard the VT short answer questions are!
I was surprised at the approach S25 took with the discrimination question in particular, but it really worked for him. We don’t spend a lot of time with his dad’s dad, for a variety of reasons that S25 understands (it’s a ridiculously unsafe environment, for one, and he’s notorious for backing out on family plans for another), but S25 took a day riding in the truck while granddad made local deliveries, and it turned out to be really great for him. So he wrote about what led to that day and how it impacted his view, and I was really touched. (He and I had a really good talk later about the family dynamics, too.)
I just put that out there to say the essay wasn’t at all what I expected of that topic, but it fit well with who S25 is and how he sees how bias impacts people in different ways.
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The biggest problem S25 had with the VT essays is that the word count is so low, that it felt hard for him to share something meaningful and well discussed without running out of room. On that diversity/bias question he ended up talking about a time when he realized other people who are somehow more marginalized than him felt left out and what he did to try to address that. Our older son, when he applied, wrote about how he recognized the ease and privileges he has, and why/how that compelled him to try to reach outside his comfort zone to make sure he was aware and not living in a bubble.
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That sounds like it was an impactful way to handle that question, and what a good experience for your son. Thinking outside the box is key, I think. A lot of these kids have been lucky enough not to have a ton of experience with discrimination in the way that we typically think of it..
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Both great ways to address that question. My son is a summer camp leader and scholarships are given out to many boys whose families would not be able to send their kids there without one. They come from all over the US to attend this camp on a full ride. Maybe he will think about that for this question.
Yes, 150 words to discuss a meaningful experience is really tough!
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I have seen this in a few emails from other schools too "Apply ED - Dealine Soon, etc and no mention (or totally buried mention EA is same day) -find it a bit icky…
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I actually kind of love this!
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agree, also because are they really that different than each other? Sometimes yes, but often no… My kid is applying to 3 flagships (only 2 ask this thankfully) and they are great schools but not exactly unique or very special in some way..
For most schools I think it is self-important to ask this..most (not just big state schools) really aren’t that different from each other …
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I may have said this exact thing recently. 
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S25 put in his last planned application a couple days ago (Rice) even though they don’t have EA - he just wanted to have them all out of the way!
I’m so proud of him for spending a bunch of time with a friend the last few days helping him with his applications (proofreading, giving moral support to stay focused). S25 said his friend was submitting applications at about 11:50 last night!
S25 also got good news with Michigan State Honors College invitation and additional scholarships yesterday, so a good day all around.
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I have zero clue what hs assignments or tests my kid has. I didn’t pay attention to my last 2 kiddos that way. However, I do know that D25 has a scholarship essay to write. This one is 500 words and in regards to a multicultural scholarship and group that she had interest in after touring the school and hearing about it. She needs to attend 2 cultural events a month and would live in their residential community. As a Latina who grew up in a very white community, this is important to her. It’s an additional 4k or more a year in scholarship. She is more of an introvert so this is all a win, win, win for her.
Her list is being narrowed as she is officially asking to change to Social Work major versus Criminal Justice. Some of the schools she had much interest in only have Sociology which can work but depends on their focus.
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My son is ready to drop a school from his list (The New School) just because of how annoyed he is with their supplemental essays. I really like your sons’ approaches and I may ask him to look at the questions with that sort of framing. Thank you for sharing!
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Of course! For S25, the way he fleshed this out was with a story about his summer counseling job at a learn to bike camp and how he realized the only girl in his group was intimidated by the boys or pushed aside and scared to speak up and ask for what she needed. He talked about how that opened his eyes to how people react in groups and what he did as a leader to make sure she felt supported, heard, and valued.
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I have a friend whose daughter is in her senior year at St Olaf. She absolutely loves it! Heard so many great things about this school.
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Could not agree more! It’s a delicate process that requires giving them space to fail and learn at a certain level, but not in a high risk situation such as college apps. There are safer ways to let them fail and learn. To the parents who think you need to leave it up to the student, I will say you only have the experience of your child(ren). A study of one or two is not enough to be an expert on this issue.
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I have found myself asking this too. The bureaucratic complexity with all of this is intimidating, even for me (and I work in state bureaucracy!). The other night I decided to frame it another way. If it was my husband or my sister or me having to do all of this, we would work as a team and help each other. I’m not saying we’d write an essay for our kid, but editing? Deadline management? Reminders to check that LORs are done and the email was written to “demonstrate interest” 
? Yes, yes and yes. We work as a team in this family and we want our kids to feel comfortable asking for help when they’re overwhelmed or offer to help when they see someone else could use a hand.
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