Yep, they care about it as a gateway into what makes you tick, @EclaireurTirailleur. But the more exposition you do on the subjects of your research, the less they learn about what makes you special. The readers will be happy to see what makes you geek out, but your objective is to get them to learn more about you, not the historical figures.
The historical figures and their times are a device, and you may want to introduce them to make your passions shine, but the reader is trying to learn about you, not them. It’s a balance. College essay writing is not term paper writing.
That is such a good point that I think a lot of high school seniors don’t realize. It is very different type of writing than most applicants are familiar with. It takes time and feedback to learn how to make that switch.
You remind me of a friend of mine. He’s a published poet. He’s quite good at what he does and it’s nearly impossible to resist the passion behind it when he buttonholes me into reading his latest work. But there’s a limit and it would help a lot, if he could sometimes switch subjects.
I really like how you put this, I understand what you’re saying. Historical figures and my related work shouldn’t be the focus of the essay. I should use them instead to tell the AO’s how those figures/events/ etc. impacted me and how those impacts make me who I am. Not even necessarily why they should admit me into their college, but I should just describe my traits and how my activities reflect that? I hope that was a good way to put it.
Hoya Saxa hopefully!! (fingers crossed.) I would like the freedom of academic exploration and personalized nature of SFS (from what I’ve been told its like from my friend at GT '28 and Prof. Leonore.
Yeah I wish they taught us how to write our essays better. My lit teacher basically threw a quick presentation at us and told us to write our essays in 3 days. Thankfully I had already gotten my personal pretty much finalized by then but still, I feel like many teachers don’t really go in-depth into what I’m supposed to be doing. In fact, all my teachers just told me to be ‘unique’ and didn’t really define what unique was. They just said ‘stand out to colleges.’ So… yeah.
You can imagine how I am at parties. Sorry this is really off topic but I too get what you’re trying to say. Basically don’t beat the history thing to death too much. I guess?
Agreed, and it’s also not a grad school application. For grad school, you’d get much more into the weeds with your research interests, because the people who decide to admit you to a grad program are professors in that program. For undergrad, it’s more about you as a whole person, because the people admitting you are admissions officers who are assessing your fit for a college, not a department. So your audience is educated but non-specialist, and they want to know more about you as a person than as a scholar. They also know, statistically, that you’re likely to change your major once admitted (even if you don’t, many or most do), so their concern is more about overall qualifications and personal drive. So you need to know your audience – your research is your vehicle to reveal important facets of your personality.