This question looks easy right? i’ve read a lot of student essays this summer, and many students’ first impulse is to start with this topic. Why? i see many students turning this topic into a goody two shoes essay, writing with a parent or teacher looking over their shoulder and trying to please them. It’s true of all admissions and supplement essays and especially this prompt that you need to get past the obvious to write an essay that connects with admissions officers and shows them who you are.

Essay Writing Farmer

Your achievements will show up in the activities + awards section of the common app. And, in general, big accomplishments are less interesting than more complex and ambiguous moments of learning and change. Often it’s a matter of how you frame what we call your defining moments: the moments that shape who you are today, the moments that have created the person you will be in college. Here’s how to avoid the dangers inherent in ca question 5: avoid the obvious: any essay that includes the words that is the day i learned is sure to flop. Find a story that reveals what you learned without hitting your reader over the head with it.

Love Essay to Him

Often a moment when you learned one of life’s less obvious lessons can show something quirky and unusual about you. focus out: get out of your own thoughts, and use details, dialogue and description to explore the world around you. What important things will they understand about you from the world around you? have a discussion: when an essay seems a little flat, try introducing another character. What did they say? what did they experience at your big event or accomplishment? dialogue instantly draws the reader into your experience, almost like a third person in the room while you are talking to someone else. Is there some aspect to the story that adds some tension perhaps overcoming an obstacle, or rising to a challenge of some kind? reasons to believe: most important, what does this moment show about your character? what do you want the reader to know about you after reading the essay? remember, the most important job of your essays is to reveal your character. Make sure, when talking about accomplishments, that you go past the event or achievement itself to reveal what the accomplishment means not just to you but about you. I’ve just finished reading donald miller’s a million miles in a thousand years, a gem of a book that i urge you to read, perhaps before you take on the third common app essay question.

And if story is derived from real life, if story is just a condensed version of life, then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another. Kay rothman, the brilliantly loving college counselor at the new york city lab school, said to me recently, very few high school seniors have enough experience to answer this question well. I once interviewed an applicant for princeton whose parents had kicked him out when he told them he was gay. He had lived with a friend for a while, and was applying to college from a homeless shelter.

Would you do it again? i just couldn’t live a lie anymore, he said, looking directly into my eyes. it’s almost a series of questions, inviting you to describe a time that you took on something established, what you did, and what you learned: there is the challenge itself, what caused you to act, and then this is the reflect part would you do it again? first, what is the issue, the belief or idea that you challenged? perhaps it was a time you stood up for something for the first time, like calling your friends out for bullying. Perhaps it was the intersection of something personal and political, and perhaps the stakes are high, like the young man who came out to his parents and lost his home. The most important thing is to write about personal and intellectual changes in a way that connects with people who may not agree with you. How do you show your passion, commitment, and value to the community to someone who disagrees with you completely? to engage your reader, whatever their beliefs, take them into your world and show them very specifically what your world looked like before the change, what catalyzed the change, and how your world was different afterwards.

You can do this by choosing one moment that typifies life before and one that reveals life after. There is a huge difference between saying i believe and showing your belief in action. The danger in this question is shifting to an analytical essay and arguing for your own beliefs like you would in english class. People who are leaders in debate and public speaking find themselves quickly down this rabbit hole. But the question asks you to reflect and even to challenge your own actions with the phrase would you make the same decision again? it is not asking you to argue for your beliefs, but to describe a time you took action to challenge a belief or idea. What does this change mean about who you will be in a campus community? if you tell a story about the moment you took action, your reader will get a very clear picture of what they can count on you for.