College Admissions Essay: How Movies Influenced My Life
And even when it’s not an outright crime, you should refrain from writing about unethical activities that make you look bad. For example, some students have actually written college essays about how they were caught cheating on a test and ultimately learned from the experience. Learning from mistakes is fine and all, but the only outcome of such an essay is making the admissions committee question how long it will take you to start cheating on various college tests and essays.
The ideal essay topic is one that makes the committee trust you and believe that you’ll add value to the college. That’s going to be tough to do when you write about illegal or unethical activities.
In a perfect world, this would go without saying, but here goes: whatever you do, make sure your college essay doesn’t talk about you participating in illegal or unethical activities. For example, if you casually mention illegal drug use in your essay, it will make the college worry about you partaking in illegal drugs while at the college. They may even worry about you getting others (such as frat brothers or sorority sisters) using illegal drugs as well. Not a great look.
Movie Script format for Common App?? - College Essays
The entire narration of this movie is in the format of an admissions essay, and they could not have nailed it better. This kind of personal journey and deep, life-defining story gives us an authentic look into how the character got to where she is, and how her life experiences shaped her path.
Spanglish is a Mexican-American girl’s story told through the perspective of her college admissions essay. She talks about the year her mother worked in the home of a wealthy white family, and highlights the privilege that can help determine someone’s admission to college, along with her personal journey to accept and celebrate her struggles.
Just as we cannot pinpoint the exact moment we learn our own names, I can’t recall when my love for theatre began, but it must have been around the same time. I don’t remember a time I hadn’t been fascinated by storytelling and performance. This childhood amusement only strengthened when I started going to school and we’d put on plays for parents, and started reading and discussing literature later on. To me theatre means the perfect alliance of performance, art and academics. It represents to me all the every-day aspects of life while also holding artistic value. My love for literature comes from my unwillingness to be bored.
Throughout the movie, Elle writes one essay for her entire college application. Realistically, even just applying to these two colleges would require her to write at least six different essays. She is seen not putting in the range of work required in a college application but still gets into both UC Berkeley and Harvard. In addition, the movie deliberately decides to show the college representatives in the decision room emotionally reading Elle’s essay. This theatrical effect that her essay has on the college representatives ignores the fact that she didn’t answer the prompt and supports the lack of effort put into Elle’s application.
We watched 5 movies about college admissions
It can be isolating for teenagers to watch the media constantly showing characters getting into college without revealing how taxing the college application process truly is. Movies and TV shows often include colleges that are typically seen as incredibly competitive to get into, such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. Entertainment is a reflection of what society wants to see and only ever showing characters going to high-ranking schools solely gives value to this one experience. While having this prestigious list of college choices may be the experience for some students, it doesn’t apply to all. In the media, there is no reflection of students deciding to go to a school because it financially works for them, has a department they’re looking for, or is closer in location to their family. It always tends to come back to the college’s prestigious name. When there are occasionally examples of characters struggling with finance to attend college, realistically required steps such as having a conversation about financial aid with their guardian, filling out FAFSA forms, and the potential of having to switch a college decision based on receiving a financial offer after getting into a college is hardly ever shown.
What Not to Write About in a College Essay
For example, if you decide to do a “resume” style essay, don’t try to dazzle them with all of your different accomplishments. Instead, zero in on one very specific accomplishment, and dive into layers of reflection and meaning. This gives you much more room to detail how the experience shaped you into the kind of person who will to the college. The same wisdom holds true for writing about your mission trip: if you must write about it, try to focus on that we’re not expecting. Like, did it teach you about healthy boundaries and autonomy and balance, instead of the cliche version. .
College Essay about Movies | TikTok
My favorite essay of all time – by far – was from a student who met a great guy, and talked about their first few hours together. It was not only brilliantly written, but it showed a subtle change in her realizing that she was not alone in feeling somewhat isolated from her “conformist” friends.
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Beyond making yourself look good, the primary goal of any college essay is to help you stand out from other applicants. This gives you a chance to really lean into a certain writing style (for example, it’s okay to use a humorous writing voice) that makes your essay more memorable. In fact, it actually helps to humanize you, meaning the admissions committee will see yours as more than just another application in the stack.