that looming essay

calmom
Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:32:27 +0000

ChiSquare, I would really suggest that you get a copy of the book by Harry Bauld “On Writing the College Application Essay” and then just leave it somewhere in the house where your kid is sure to see it. I think it does a great job of getting the message across about what is expected, and I also think it helped get my daughter’s creative juices flowing.

One more thing – if it was your idea as the parent to write about the experience… it might be a particularly bad idea. One thing I have learned now that my kids are adults (ages 20 & 25) is that they are not the people I thought they were in high school. As a parent, I saw their lives through the lens of my own shared experiences with them, but I didn’t really see their inner beings – how they responded to what was around them, how they felt – or who they would become once they were no longer living in the environment I provided. So what I saw as most important – for example, the things I might have listed as the 5 most significant events of their lives – weren’t necessarily the same things that were important to them. For example: my divorce from their father. To me: big deal. To them it was almost insignificant, an external event of their lives that they didn’t see as having much impact on their own lives.