"Significant Experience" essay - need advice on the content of this essay

Topic:

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

Hey guys, I would be really grateful if you could help me out with this. I think that there has been just one striking experience during my high school that has really taught me something, and the experience is about this crush that I had on a girl. It really taught me a lot. From timemanagement to respecting parents to I don't know what else. Could anyone tell me whether it would be wise to talk about such a matter in a University essay?

And by the way, I plan on applying to the top Universities (Carnegie, Cornell.. etc).

Please reply soon.

Ugh. Don't. Just please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, don't. That ranks right up there with "how much my father/mother means to me" as a subject students should be forbidden to write about in application essays.

Okay, I'm exaggerating -- you could, in theory, write a good essay on your proposed topic. But it would be very difficult to avoid making it trite, cliche, sentimental, etc.

So, I would suggest that you try brainstorming incidents from your life that fall into the various categories you can choose from:

a significant experience
achievement
risk you have taken
ethical dilemma

Surely, somewhere, in one of those categories, you have an experience you can draw on that isn't likely to be shared by 90+% of your demographic group. Obviously it would help if you had a really outstanding experience that was innately exciting, but it can be something smaller that you can make interesting, with a bit of work. Personally, I'd gravitate to the ethical dilemma, as being a choice that doesn't crop up as often for these sorts of essays.

Okay. Thanks a lot. I will work on something else. But the bottom line is that I shouldn't write about anything that would make it cliche and involve too much of thinking. Right?

It is okay to write about something that requires a lot of thought. I'm just saying you should try to find a topic that is a bit original and different from what many of the other applicants will be writing about. The more commonplace the experience you write about, the more difficult it will be to write an outstanding essay on it, and having a crush on someone is a fairly common experience, especially for the demographic that tends to include most university applicants.

Hey guys,

Can someone please give me some feedback for my common app essay? I will be really very thankful. Also tell me if this would be a fine topic to write the essay on. I am applying to the top universities (Cornell, Carnegie etc.)

".... hate these hermaphrodites" was all I could eavesdrop on the conversation that engaged the two grade 11 students behind me. I had the least idea what hermaphrodites meant, which drove me curious to look up what it meant. Oxford defined it as "a person having both male and female organs". The definition could only strike a 13 year old child with disgust, shame and bitter condemnation. I slammed the book, and closed the chapter forever. But I had never known that I would see them myself sometime, only to change my views about them.

I have been living in Jakarta for the past 4 years and have paid visits to India, my birth country, every summer. Despite the torrid sun casting his daunting hot rays there, love of our family continually pulled us there. But for me, one of the main reasons attracting me there is my best friend. Out of a 4 weeks trip, I spend more than a week with him. But even a week seems short every time. Our tactics of passing time might sound very banal but have always bookmarked the pages in our memory. Once we entered an Adidas shop at a mall to check out some t-shirts. We ended up buying 2, one for each of us. My friend carries a hook with him wherever he goes. He considers it his lucky charm. He had it that day as well. The salesperson handed us our bag. My friend was rolling the hook with the long and thin thread it had. While walking out the store, accidentally the hook got stuck in the hair of the salesperson, and with a slight pull, came cutting through the air with his wig attached to it. I, my friend and the other customers burst into peals of laughter upon seeing the suddenly transformed bald salesperson. A moment ago he was a handsome spike styled man, and by the second he turned into a bald dumbstruck man. His head resembled a constipated egg. We ran out of the store as quick as we could, tenaciously laughing at the situation of the salesperson. This was just one of those pages from our grand book of memoirs. The rest of it is filled too with such events.

Two years ago, again my summer was spent in India. I was with my friend. It was the very first night of the day we met. We were returning home from the mall in a rickshaw, cracking jokes and gossiping. A few minutes later we were encountered by a crowd of locals facing a wall and spitting vituperative remarks. The rickshaw had to stop due to the commotion. Upon asking, even our rickshaw driver didn't know what the problem was. I and my friend had to get down and take a peek at the scene circumscribed by the locals. We were able to make some space through with great difficulty, only to find them thrashing 2 hermaphrodites. Two 15 year old lads subjected to such a merciless scene may only sound like a fabricated story. But the sight terrified us. Upon asking one of the men among the crowd, we were told that they were being punished for being drunk and bumping in 2 men, and the biggest of all, because they are hermaphrodites. The person then pushed us away, joined the crowd and ordered us to go home. Without a second thought we sat back in the rickshaw and asked the rickshaw driver to turn around and look for another way, even if it would take longer.

I spent the entire time that followed the event, immersed in thoughts about the scene. Why does the world condemn this one group of humans? What is their fault in being born the way they are? What is their fault if they have not been assigned a separate sex like others? Hindus themselves regard God as the creator of everything and preach about respecting his creation, but now they themselves were being the ones violating their tenets. I could not do anything to stop the event. What could a 15 year old child living out of India do? That one event changed my impression of hermaphrodites. It compelled me to take an ethical stance in this issue, then or never. Until today, that event strikes me whenever I come across the word hermaphrodite. All I can do is hope that they are understood and that the world begins respecting every creation in the world. It is worth realizing that just like those two hermaphrodites, there would be millions more subjected to the same situation. The recent Gay law in India granting freedom to gays relieved me greatly. At least the world is considering these unique beings. The name still alarms me with hope, that they will too be granted freedom someday. After all freedom is everyone's birthright.

Moderators, please delete this thread. I do not need it.

Your topic is good, especially since the concerns of intersexed individuals have begun to be discussed more openly in recent years. I'm confused, however, by the second paragraph, which doesn't seem to tie into the rest of the essay.

Your grammar is generally good although, as is so often the case, your writing will be stronger if you strive to make it more concise. You might also want to do a little research on the topic about which you're writing. Not to make this a research paper but simply to inform yourself about what the people for whom you express concern have to say for themselves.

We don't usually delete threads unless they violate our Terms of Service. In fact, our TOS specifically states that we will not do so. Sorry.

Thanks a lot. I will look to improve the essay as suggested. Thanks a lot once again. And yes, the second paragraph may not tie well with the rest of the essay. I added it so that the whole essay doesn't become a very serious one. does it work to fulfill that goal.

No. Like I said earlier, I thought you were going to say how your friend is a hermaphrodite.
It set me up for the wrong thing, and it is not even related. It is just a superfluous paragraph. I thought it was quite pointless, and quite frustrating, that I had read all of that only to realise that it has no pertinence to the essence of your essay's theme.

Revise and repost your essay. Lets take another look.

Yeah, the superfluous paragraph can go. Also, what exactly does the "Gay law in India" (that can't be its actual name -- look it up and use that) have to do with hermaphrodites? For that matter, how would you (or even the other onlookers), know that the people they were beating were intersexual? Assuming the victims were clothed, that is. As I understand it, the condition is usually unnoticeable to a casual observer.

^Great points Sean. I am disappointed with myself that I did not comment that the hermaphrodites are not homosexuals, and therefore, the 'Gay law' will not apply to them.

Sean also brings up another good point. In India, it is often a slang insult to call someone an intersexual. (I have heard these insults before...)Are you sure that the people you saw were actually hermaphrodites, and that the onlookers did not just yell out vituperative remarks at them because of some previously stemmed hatred, rather than because the two people were hermaphrodites?

Perhaps, you should consider discussing how you know that those two people were hermaphrodites...

Right. I believe that gay men are often denigrated by being called hermaphrodites. So, what you might have seen was a gay bashing rather than an assault on intersexed individuals. In that case, the reference to the "gay law," whatever it is called (you should specify) is valid.

But then the discussion of hermaphrodites in the rest of the essay isn't (valid, that is). For what it's worth, I think the essay would be stronger if it did focus entirely on your decision to fight against homophobia, based on your witnessing of a gay bashing. There are several reasons for this.

First, homophobia is a well-known and important social problem, given that there is a sizable percentage of the population that is gay. (4% of the U.S. electorate self-identifies as gay, and the number reported is believed to be considerably lower than the actual number, for a variety of reasons). Interphobia? It doesn't even have a name! is much less of a problem, because there are far fewer intersexual individuals. At most 0.2% of people are born with sexual characteristics ambiguous enough to warrant surgical intervention, and many of these individuals will be "fixed" by surgery while they are young enough that they will grow up never knowing that they are in fact intersexual.

Second, homosexuality emerges as the result of a complex interaction between genes and environment. In fact, some research has indicated that, for women, sexuality may be a continuum they can easily move along depending upon social expectations. For men, sexuality seems to be more of an either/or thing, though no one is yet sure why. All of which makes sexual orientation very interesting as a social phenomenon. Intersexuality is just a matter of genetic malfunctions. That makes it much less interesting, from a social point of view, as it is essentially an unfortunate medical condition. One can try to pretend it is not, as some deaf people try to pretend that being deaf isn't, but that is a view that is demonstrably and self-evidently wrong.

I'm guessing, Sean, that you're not part of what is now generally called the LGBT movement. In fact, there is considerable prejudice against intersexed individuals and we have learned that far more people than was previously believed are intersexed to some degree. In recent years, the lesbian and gay rights movement has welcomed the concerns of both transgendered and intersexed individuals, understanding that -- as evidenced by the frequency with which gay people are denigrated by the term hermaphrodite in various cultures -- the same underlying social dynamic oppresses the groups. This is, to put it shortly, the inaccurate view that all people are clearly male or female, that masculinity and femininity map naturally onto those sexes, and that the only natural match is between a male and a female.

Never said there wasn't. Said that there weren't that many of them, and that of those, most would never know they were. Also that, as a clear result of various genetic disorders, it had less interest as a social phenomenon.


Well, even if twice the number were, it would still only bring it up to 0.4%, still far less than the gay community as a whole. Also, I suspect that this involves changing the term to have a much broader meaning that its scientific sense alone would cover.


This is an interesting argument, and might profitably be included in an essay in favor of gay rights, which is likely to seem more meaningful to the reader than an essay on intersexual . . . "rights" isn't even the correct word here. Respect?

Hey guys,

I had a small question. Can someone please answer this?

Is writing about community service in the common app main essay a good idea? Because I have heard that the Universities appreciate community service involvement a lot. Is it a good topic though?

Hey nike,

Your essay topic is a good one. I think you are considering re-writing your essay? Community & Service would be a very common topic, I am sure many people write such essays. Your topic about hermaphrodites (sp?) is very unique. It would certainly stand out.

It just needs some revisions to really shine. The second paragraph should be deleted, not just because it's somewhat irrelevent but also because it makes you and your friend sound kind of mean. I know it was a funny experience but you wouldn't want the admission officers to think you laughed at people when they were caught in an embarrassed moment. Go directly from your intro to the fact that you live in Jakarta and visit India, and then one day you were travelling with your friend on a rickshaw when...

The description of that occurrence should happen in the middle of your essay since it's the climax, and the entire end should be what you gained from it. Remember part of the prompt is to evaluate the experience's "impact on you." So say that this gave you new insight into people's discriminatory ways, but also showed you why making progress on these fronts is so important. Explain the law that shows that India is making this progress. And explain how your outlook on the world was changed, or whatever the "impact on you" was from this experience. Make a direct connection from the event to how it affected you personally, so it doesn't seem like you're just dictating something that happened once.

Also, one grammatical thing. There's a difference between "its" and "it's" that most people get mixed up. In people's corrections to your essay I saw this mistake was made so I just wanted to make sure you know the correct way to use the two, because little things like these can affect admission officer's views! "Its" is used as possessive, so for instance you would describe the sun as "the sun and its rays." "It's" is used as a contraction, short for "it is," so it would be used like "It's a sunny day today." Just make sure you didn't mix the two up so your essay is really polished!

Your topic is really good, and so is your writing, so with a little work this essay will really be one-of-a-kind. I hope you keep at it!

You should find someplace somewhere in your application to note or make reference to any substantial community service you have done. Universities do, indeed, take that into account when selecting among otherwise qualified applicants. Why? First, a record of civic engagement suggests that you will be an engaged student who contributes to the campus community. Secondly, a record of civic engagement suggests that you will put your university education to good use.

Certainly if you have done community service, you should mention it somewhere in your application. As for putting it in your main essay, well, that depends on whether or not it fits in with whatever else you plan to talk about in that essay. If you just plan on throwing it in there without connecting it smoothly to everything else you mention, then no, you shouldn't include it in that particular essay.

Thanks for the advice Sean. Umm, I just wanted to know what is 'everything else' here. Is it the section where I mention my extracurricular activities, or is it the rest of the essay, or is it all that I learnt from the activity?

Well, any essay you write should have a theme. Usually for application essays, each essay conveys one or more positive attributes about yourself. So, make sure that you talk about your community service in an essay that deals with personal attributes shown by your community service. Don't just throw in a line or two about your community service in an essay that is essentially about something else.