"My world" - how can I distinguish myself from other applicants..

So I have constantly been rewriting my personal statements; however, I do not feel that I can distinguish myself from other applicants since I'm writing about how my parents were limited to higher education, that they taught me how to work and study hard, that I am a studious person, etc. It sounds really cliche because basically many people are like this. One of my teachers briefly said in class that if we wrote about how fortunate, unfortunate, or dedicated we were, the college essay readers would be bored because they've already read essays like that. So, I've been thinking and I just had an idea the other day about approaching the prompt differently as well changing the main topic of my essay.

I was thinking of writing about my world, not necessarily the one involving my academic achievements, my contribution to the community, nor my family upbringing per se, rather about my personal interests that have strongly influenced me. My dream and aspiration is to become a detective or something of the sort. I grew up reading the cases of Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. My grandpa exposed me to Dicky Tracy, the 1990 film at a young age, and I began becoming interested in the comic strip series, reading whatever I could online or at the bookstores. My dad bought me a Chet Gecko book in elementary school that made me become more interested in reading stories about young detectives solving mysteries. Upon entering middle school where we were required to read a vigorous amount to meet requirements, I found myself choosing Agatha Christie novels featuring Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot all the time. Soon enough my mom got me the complete Sherlock Holmes edition of Sir Conan Doyle's four Sherlock Holmes novel and fifty-six short stories compiled. I immediately was taken with Holmes after reading A Study in Scarlet and fell even more in love with him after reading over 1000 pages of mysteries. I also was hooked onto tv series such as Monk and Veronica Mars, which surrounded around the lives and cases of these detectives and private investigators.

So basically I want to write about my world, my affinity of detective fiction through the influences of comic strips, books, tv shows, and movies, and how it has deeply made me want to seriously consider to want to work and study my way up to become a detective in the future. Would this be appropriate, or seem on topic in accordance to the prompt even if I will not so much talk about my family, school, or community ?

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks !

I think that if you can even loosely tie your topic to the prompt, you should write about wanting to be a detective because it makes you much more interesting as a person. Lots of people are in your situation, but not many people have the dream to be a detective. If you talk about what influenced you to be a detective, like what you wrote above, you will stand a much better chance of being accepted in my opinion.

Hey, your teacher is right, and you are right. You have a great idea. Write about what you intend to do so that the reader can draw inspiration from sharing in your vision for the future.

But do not include all the stuff about fiction and film unless you want to professionally create fiction or film.

My dream and aspiration is to become a detective or something of the sort. I grew up reading the cases of Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. My grandpa exposed me to Dicky Tracy,....choosing Agatha Christie novels featuring Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot all the time.

To become a detective with specializations in ______what? Read some PROFESSIONAL journal articles to learn about your options in the fields that interest you. Do you actually want to be in law enforcement, or do you actually enjoy the storytelling? Figure out what you want to do, and then read journal articles written by experts in your chosen field. Cite good articles, and the reader will be impressed.

:-)