http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/1814825-writing-about-sneezing-etiquette.html
So I created that thread a while back. Copy and pasted from link above:
"Basically, for much of my life I never said “bless you” or more importantly, “thank you” (after someone said “bless you”) to me. I was raised by Chinese parents and in Chinese culture, “bless you” does not exist (no one says anything after someone sneezes). One day in 8th grade I sneezed, the teacher said “bless you”, but I didn’t say anything. The teacher then said “the polite thing to say is ‘thank you’”.
I don’t know if this idea will work for the above prompt, since I can’t really think of something else to write about that isn’t exceptionally interesting. It’s probably completely off topic, but we did a peer-review thing in class and they said that the topic was good."
After thinking about it, I decided that it wouldn’t work for the college I was applying to. Now I’m wondering if it’ll work for this prompt (Common App #4, posted below). It says “no matter the scale”, so I guess it might fit better.
(The “solution” was that I started saying “thank you” and the significance was that I realized that small things (such as sneezing etiquette/saying thank you) could have an impact)
“Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.”
Would this work?
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“2. Tell us about a time when your expectations and outcomes differed. How did you grow from this experience?” (College Park UMD)
I was thinking about writing about how I thought lifeguarding would be a boring job (sitting in a chair all day and doing nothing) but later realizing that it wasn’t as boring or dull as I thought. I think this would work, but I’m not sure if the topic is considered “interesting”.