Question on the “ethical dilemma/something important” essay

SimpleLife
Sun, 12 Dec 2010 20:24:13 +0000

kairoo, are you calling the “something that didn’t go according to plan” the “ethical dilemma” essay? Are you using those titles interchangably? Because, like ganggreen, I don’t recall an ethical dilemma essay.

(parent here, btw)

I agree with LauraN. Just write the one you feel most compelled to write. There are no wrong answers here, as long as you answer the prompt. I guess I don’t get why you’re so concerned about it.

I disagree with collegealum. While I don’t think that students should ever write to what they think admissions wants to hear (beyond the obvious step of answering the question that they ask), I for one think that admissions folks LIKE to hear stories that tell about an applicant’s humanity, particularly when that applicant grows and learns something in the process. Admissions personnel KNOW that you’re all 17-19 years old, still maturing, hopefully still learning, and still human (with faults). Writing about such a learning experience is not going to tell them something they don’t already know – that you’ve made mistakes in your lifetime. And topics like that tend to be somewhat “intimate” and revealing of a person’s true character, which is what adcoms want to see – something outside of the numbers; something “real.” (And the grandpa idea is probably “fresher” than the test idea.)

Again, I wouldn’t advise anybody to try to stretch a story like that into their essays, if they’re not really “feeling” it – just to write what they think the adcoms might want to hear. But if you have a story like that that’s eating at you to be told, then I think it sounds like a great topic.

Good luck in whatever you decide. I truly think that there are no wrong answers here.