being assaulted: is this a topic of interest (safety of students on college campus)

could i write about being assaulted? if so, how can i write an essay about it without being too cheesy /vying for pity points?

I'd say why not, with one caveat:
Personal stories such as these can easily get TOO personal very quickly. In my opinion, you want to give a sense of who you are, how your identity was shaped by this event, and not get into the weeds (i.e. thick description) of such an encounter, if that makes sense.

In a broader sense, taking a life experience and interrogating/analyzing how/why this affected you, drove you to take a stance, etc. are great ways to differentiate you from other applicants. It's all in how you construct the narrative/essay. I just gave this advice to someone else, but it may be worth repeating here. I like to tackle this personal issues as a sort of outside observer, as if you are a news reporter or something and describing what happened instead of reliving the event yourself. Does that make sense? Of course, I could be totally off base and you should go with your gut and see what happens.

Good luck to you.

Yes, that is right. Sometimes it seems like instead of writing a quality essay people are using the essay writing as an opportunity for some therapy... expressing themselves for personal reasons instead of putting together a strong essay.

Write about being assaulted, but make it a means to an end. Make it so that the essay is actually about something more.

:-)