College essays are really about sharing a glimpse of your personality, perspective, and insights, so it’s possible to write amazing essays on nearly any topic.
Nevertheless, there are a handful of topics that are so over-used and cliche that they’re guaranteed to make the admissions officers groan.
There are also a few topics that are so risky that I always advise students to choose a different essay subject.
Read on to learn the 19 college essay topics that students should avoid so as to not damage their admissions chances.
19 College Essay Topics to Avoid
Applying to college? You’ve got a lot on your plate. Grab this free pdf with a detailed college admissions checklist listing every step from freshman year to senior spring — and make sure you’re not forgetting a crucial step of the road to college!
1. The sports injury
Tom Campbell, Admissions Officer at Pomona College (the most selective liberal arts college in the US), referred to this one as “the ACL tear heard around the world.”
An injury that keeps you from playing your sport during high school is absolutely a big setback that can have a significant impact on your high school athletic career and overall experience. This is not to diminish the effects of an ACL tear or another injury that can sideline a student.
However, this particular topic is unfortunately so common that Campbell describes the reaction of the admissions officer as “oh no, do I really have to read this? again?” (to paraphrase).
It’s just far too common to be interesting or memorable to admissions officers, who are ultimately the ones reading and evaluating your essays.
Whatever insights you learned or character you built from going through your sports injury, it’s all been said before.
My advice? Any essay about a sports injury will have to work extra hard to be original and memorable. Don’t make your life harder and just find a new topic!
2. The person who inspires you
Hopefully we all have people in our lives — whether a family member, a mentor, a celebrity, or a historical figure — who inspire us and help to illuminate possible futures.
However, there are two big problems with writing about an inspirational person for your college essays.
The first is that these essays inevitably end up being about that other person, not about you.
The admissions officers want to know about you, not about your grandfather or Marie Curie.
If you do try and write an essay on this topic, make sure that your essay is about your story, not about someone else. This is not the place for a book report or a family history!
However, even if you manage to keep your essay focused on your own experience and insights, I’d still recommend choosing a different topic.
That’s because the second problem with this topic is that it’s incredibly cliche.
Admissions officers have read thousands (not hyperbole) of essays about amazing grandparents and other inspirational people.
With this topic, it will be nearly impossible to be original and memorable — so try and pick something else!
3. The big performance
Many students, especially those applying to selective colleges, have pursued extracurriculars in the performing arts. Whether your passion is music, theater, dance, comedy, or slam poetry, there’s usually some kind of important performance or high-pressure event that you have to get through.
It’s natural to think of writing about these big moments. Unfortunately, though, this is another incredibly worn-out essay story.
The glare of the stage lights, the tremor in your fingers, the weight of expectations… admissions officers have read it all before.
What’s more, these narrative essays often tend to be more about the performance itself than about your core values and personality.
That’s not to say that you can’t write an essay related to an extracurricular pursuit that you’re passionate about. You just need to be more creative!
The trick is to think of hyper-specific anecdotes that reveal something about your character and your insights about yourself and your place in the world. If you want to work one-on-one with me to think of a way to write your story in a more exciting way, we can find some options.
Remember that your extracurricular accomplishments will already be clear to colleges via your college list. It’s okay to write more about them, but you can also use the space of your essays to tell a new story that you haven’t already covered elsewhere in your application.
4. The big game and the power of teamwork
Forty-five seconds left in the game. All eyes on you. You shoot… and you score! All your hard work has finally paid off, and you’ve learned the importance of grit and determination. You feel the glow of accomplishment and know that it’s all been worth it.
Or:
You shoot… but your shot goes wide! The referee blows the whistle and the game is over. Your team loses the game — but you realize that it doesn’t matter, because when it comes to teamwork, you feel like you’ve really won. You and your teammates have learned to support each other, and through teamwork you’ve accomplished much more than you could have done on your own.
Sound familiar?
On the surface, writing about your experience as an athlete, especially about the power of teamwork, seems like a great idea. You can show that you’re a team player and involved in your community, and there’s a built-in drama to the narrative.
After all, there’s a reason why we have so many heartwarming movies about sports teams, from The Mighty Ducks to Remember the Titans to Cool Runnings. They’re great stories!
Unfortunately for students, these stories are also incredibly over-used.
Regardless of how pivotal your big athletic moment was for you and your teammates, it’s unlikely that it will be interesting or memorable for the admissions officers reading your essay.
As the Associate Dean for Admissions at the prestigious University of Virginia has explained: “We read a lot of essays about sports and that sort of thing. And I would say most of them are solid, and they’re grammatically correct, and there are no typos, and they’re well-organized, and they tell me something about a student. It’s going to be confirming that you can write an essay.
“But this is a process where you want to stand out. And so it’s a process of not just writing a confirming essay but writing an elevating essay. Don’t tell me everything that soccer has taught you. Tell me the one thing that’s been truly transformative. Tell it to me as a story. Be descriptive. Be reflective.”
These essays also tend to focus more on the narrative about the game, and less on you and your values.
If you feel like your athletic achievements are impressive and you want to highlight them, don’t worry too much — these accomplishments should be clear on your activities list. If you’re such an impressive athlete that you’re being recruited by that college, then that information will already be clear in your applicant file.
Instead, take advantage of the personal essay to show another side of your personality.
Or, if you absolutely feel that you need to write about your experience as an athlete, try to find a story that isn’t about an injury, a big game, or your appreciation for the power of teamwork. If you can focus on an aspect of sports that would surprise most people, you have the best chance of making your essay memorable.
5. Your passion for a common academic major (like pre-med or CS)
This is where a little admissions strategy comes in.
At some colleges and universities, it might be harder to get in if you indicate that you want to pursue one of the most common academic majors, like computer science, pre-med, business, or psychology.
Some larger universities have separate schools or programs with different admissions criteria outright. Examples include Wharton at Penn, the School of Human Ecology at Cornell, or the School of Engineering at the University of Illinois (ranked #11 nationally, above many Ivies).
But even if a college doesn’t have separate admissions for specific programs, the admissions officers may engage in a process called “shaping the class.”
American colleges want to have a balanced set of students who are interested in a wide variety of subjects and pursue a variety of majors.
This allows them to fill out more niche majors and provide broader course offerings, which benefits everyone on campus and fulfils part of the college’s academic mission. Everyone on campus benefits from increased diversity of academic interests. It would be pretty boring to attend a college filled only with psychology majors!
This means that after the top students are selected and marked as potential admits, the admissions officers may then make the final cut based in part on making a balance between humanities and STEM students, common majors and more niche programs of study.
Students who indicate that they intend to pursue one of the most popular and over-subscribed majors, like computer science or psychology, may find that they’re at a disadvantage in this process.
And even if the colleges where you’re applying don’t use this “shaping” process, essays about these popular interests are less likely to be memorable.
Admissions officers have read thousands of essays about students who “feel called to a career in medicine because they want to help other people.”
That’s why I only advise students to write about these topics if they genuinely have a unique angle or insight to bring to their essay (which is rare), and if they have truly impressive accomplishments in that area already.
If you’re applying to a highly selective college and you’re indicating an intention to be pre-med in your application, hopefully you’ve already had some lab research experience, done some medical internships, performed mock surgeries, worked as an EMT, or published a medical paper.
If you can’t list any of these accomplishments, don’t worry — but it might be more strategic for you to focus on some aspect of yourself that’s more unusual or memorable, not on your passion for that popular major.
Also, don’t worry if you don’t have a plan for your college major yet! Admissions officers know that between 30 and 75 percent of students change their major. At most colleges, it doesn’t look bad if you don’t know your intended major yet, as long as you seem intellectually curious and excited to explore.
6. Immigrating to a new country
If you’ve immigrated to a new country at some point in your life already, then you know it can be a very formative experience. I’ve lived and worked in four different countries myself, so I can understand some of this firsthand. New languages, new cultures, new foods, new communities, new expectations — there’s a lot of material there!
Unfortunately, though, this particular story is a very common one for college essays. Every year admissions officers get hundreds or even thousands of essays describing how the student moved to a new country and had to adjust before ultimately learning some lessons about both their country of origin and their new home.
That means that it’s very hard to stand out with a typical narrative about immigrating to a new country.
If you really want to write about some aspect of your experience as an immigrant, try and think of particularly unique experiences that you personally may have had as an immigrant. One piece of advice is to focus on hyper-specific details and tiny anecdotes for your story — these are much less likely to be familiar and cliche for the readers in the admissions office.
Every year I work with students from all over the world to help them apply to colleges and universities in the US, regardless of their current location and timezone. If you want to work one-on-one with me to find the best way to tell your stories, feel free to reach out at info@ivybloomacademics.com.
7. Moving to a new town or new school
Just like the essay about the culture shock of moving to a new country, the narrative about moving to a new town or a new school is unfortunately quite common.
Was this potentially a pivotal moment in your life? For sure.
But does that mean you should write about it in your college applications? Not unless you want to make it extra-difficult to stand out.
If you do want to write about your experience of starting over in a new town or at a new school, stay away from generalizations — try to highlight smaller stories that could only have happened to you, not thousands of other students.
8. The mission trip or service project
This essay is one of the most famous cliches for college essays.
In this narrative, the young teen (often affluent, often white) spends a few weeks the summer before their senior year on a service trip. The service project is ideally somewhere international, someplace where the student can play the “white savior,” but it could also take place closer to home.
The typical narrative goes something like this:
“I’m a good person who cares about others, so I wanted to use my talents to give back by going on this service project trip to Africa/the inner city/El Salvador with my school/church/expensive voluntourism program.
When I arrived, I was shocked by the conditions these people live with everyday. It made me appreciate all of the comforts that I have at home!
However, despite the poverty/disease/lack of access to resources, these people didn’t seem unhappy. In fact, they seemed happier/more connected to nature/more generous/more focused on community than my own people back home! In the end, I learned so much from them. I thought I was going there to help them, but really, they helped me!”
There are several problems with this essay.
The first is that it’s very common, and by now a well-known cliche. If you attempt to write an essay on this topic, you’ll have a harder time standing out.
Secondly, colleges know that students do this kind of flashy service project deliberately to provide material for college applications. Giving back to your community is great, but if your service project doesn’t connect to any previous activities you’ve been involved in, this will be quite transparent to admissions readers. Believe it or not, but admissions officers are not impressed by affluent students essentially purchasing a good college essay subject.
Thirdly, the phenomenon itself of “voluntourism” is widely acknowledged as problematic:
In the words of a New York Times article, voluntourists assume that “simply by being privileged enough to travel the world” they “are somehow qualified to help ease the world’s ills.”
…voluntourists’ actions are often fruitless due to the volunteers’ limited involvement and expertise. Put bluntly, many of these trips serve no purpose other than to pad resumes and fuel social media posts.
Voluntourism implicitly teaches students to develop a “white savior” complex toward the regions they visit. More insidiously, residents of host communities can become dependent on foreign influence — financial influence, that is, because none of the voluntourists’ other impacts typically last longer than their trip. As Pippa Biddle illustrates in the book “Ours To Explore,” once one group “[finishes] building bathrooms at a local school and [leaves] for home, the structures [will be] demolished to make way for a new project, built by a fresh set of volunteers.” She even documented how children in Uganda learned to “rub dirt on themselves before running toward arriving volunteers.
(from “High on Helping: The Dangers of Voluntourism,” an essay by student Ketong Li, age 17, published in The New York Times)
It’s very challenging to write an essay about this topic without accidentally sounding racist or xenophobic. Any essay following this “service project” narrative inherently sets up an “us” versus “them” that’s inescapably othering. At best, this makes students sound naive. At worst, it will be very off-putting to readers in the admissions office.
It’s possible to write a good essay that’s related to this topic, but it’s very challenging. A good essay about a mission trip or service project would have to be surprising and depart from the typical narrative. It would have to be a story that no other student could have written, and it can’t sound too self-serving.
Because of those challenges, I usually advise students to choose a different topic, especially if they’re aiming at a highly competitive university where their essays will be under intense scrutiny.
If you want help thinking of the best essay topics for you and your life, sign up to work one-on-one with me on your college essays.
9. Life-changing travel experiences
This essay topic is a close relation to the “mission trip” essay described above.
Traveling can be a wonderful way to learn more about the world!
However, essays about this topic tend to make the same mistakes.
It’s very challenging to write about your experiences encountering a new culture, environment, language, foods, and so on without accidentally sounding naive, racist, or xenophobic. Describing your reaction to the differences you discover while traveling is very challenging to do well. Don’t attempt this essay topic unless you are well aware of these dangers!
When I’ve read good college essays about traveling, they always focus on very specific details about the travel experience, and they’re very careful to avoid an “us vs. them” construct.
I’ve also encountered plenty of good college essays that mentioned travel in passing as part of a larger story, but didn’t make the travel itself the focus on the narrative.
After all, often the ability to travel is just a marker of a student’s privilege and affluence, and it doesn’t say something particularly interesting about the student. Writing about your family’s spring break trip to Mexico? Thousands of other students could likely have written the same story.
However, your anecdote about the way that something you saw in a museum in Mexico City led you to pursue an independent study project on Mayan archaeology the following year and sparked an interest in learning more about comparative linguistics and the Mesoamerican language area — that’s interesting, and definitely tells the reader something about what excites you!
As always, the trick to writing great college essays is to make sure that the essay is ultimately about you and your values, not about other people, and to make it unique and engaging by including lots of specific details that could only describe you and your life, not the experience of anyone else.
Applying to college? You’ve got a lot on your plate. Grab this free pdf with a detailed college admissions checklist listing every step from freshman year to senior spring — and make sure you’re not forgetting a crucial step of the road to college!
10. Overcoming the setback of a bad grade
This essay topic is just a bad one, and there’s really no way to do it well.
It’s true that often students want to respond to an essay prompt about a particular challenge that they’ve faced and overcome in their life. And it’s entirely possible that struggling in a class at school has been a challenge for you, whether the class was freshman English or multi-variable calculus.
However, your college essays are your chance to introduce yourself to the admissions officers.
Given that you only have a few minutes to make your first impression, why would you want this impression to highlight your academic weaknesses?
Even if your story ultimately ends in success through your grit and hard work, it still associates you with academic struggles. There’s no reason to do this!
Sometimes students want to write their essay on this topic to explain a bad grade on their transcript, or give context to lower grades for an entire year or two.
However, there are several ways that this can backfire.
If your grades are overall strong, and there’s just a small blip (e.g. you’re normally a straight-A student but you got a B+ in physics one semester), focusing on this makes you sound like a perfectionist, and not in a good way. Rest assured that if there’s truly just a small blip like this, but the rest of your application profile is strong, it won’t really affect your admissions chances.
Another challenge is that writing about bad grades can sound like making excuses. If there’s a specific reason why your grades were lower, and if you can confidently and clearly describe how you fixed the underlying problem and raised your grades, this is better — but thinking strategically, it’s still better not to highlight it in your main college essays! This kind of explanation might be a better fit for the “Additional Information” section on the Common App (other applications should have a similar section).
Remember, if you have experienced external circumstances that have affected your high school career (serious illness or accident, family tragedy, war, natural disaster), you don’t need to write about this for your main personal essay. You can provide this context for admissions officers through the “Additional Information” section, a letter from your school college counselor, the letters of recommendation from your teachers, and often via shorter supplemental essays. Read more about how to give context for bad grades here [link].
In the end, while there are some essay topics in this list that can be okay, if written exceptionally well… this one is simply a bad idea. Pick a new topic!
11. Controversial politics (read the room)
This essay topic is playing with fire.
Remember, the admissions officers reading and judging your application are human.
Some people will tell you to avoid faith and religion entirely, but I don’t think that necessarily has to be the case. I’ve read great college essays about involvement in a faith community, a crisis of faith, or reflecting on a relationship to a particular religious practice.
Similarly, it’s possible to write an amazing essay about your political engagement or activist work. In fact, some colleges are explicitly looking for students who are engaged in politics and activism! For example, at Pomona (the most selective liberal arts college in the US), the admissions officers are looking for evidence of (1) intellectual curiosity, (2) investment in community, and (3) commitment to and mindfulness of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Working to fight injustice in the student’s community may well demonstrate two of their three pillars very effectively!
However, you do have to be aware of the overall culture at the specific college you’re applying to. How is that college likely to react to your political position or religious practice?
You can often get a sense of what is valued at that specific college by following official social media accounts from the college. When the university admissions office or marketing team highlights current students on campus, what kinds of projects are those students pursuing?
Another fantastic way to gauge a college’s priorities is by looking for their mission statement, which can usually be found easily online.
For example, Princeton’s mission statement is:
Princeton University advances learning through scholarship, research, and teaching of unsurpassed quality, with an emphasis on undergraduate and doctoral education that is distinctive among the world’s great universities, and with a pervasive commitment to serve the nation and the world. (Meet Princeton)
Meanwhile, the mission statement for Oberlin, another top liberal arts college, states:
Oberlin educates students for lives of intellectual, musical, and artistic rigor and breadth; sustained inquiry, creativity and innovation; and leadership. Oberlin aims to prepare graduates with the knowledge, skills, and perspectives essential to confront complex issues and to create change and value in the world.
Oberlin is committed to educational access and opportunity. It seeks to offer a diverse and inclusive residential learning environment encouraging a free and respectful exchange of ideas and shares an enduring commitment to a sustainable and just society. (About Oberlin)
You might notice some subtle differences between the two — Oberlin’s mission statement highlights creativity and artistic pursuits, and is more openly committed to diversity, sustainability, and justice. While Princeton’s mission statement describes more neutral “service to the nation and the world,” Oberlin’s statement is a little more specific, preparing students to “create change.”
In this case, I think these differences are not coincidence. While both schools are fantastic, the political environment on each campus is a little different — Princeton may produce many amazing graduates, but their campus is more balanced between conservatives and liberals, whereas Oberlin has a long tradition of social justice and progressive political activism.
For even more information about politics on campus, prospective students can reach out to current students they may already know, or contact student organizations active on campus, like faith organizations, political or social justice organizations, or queer student organizations.
To gauge the climate on campus for LGBTQ students specifically, you can also use the Campus Pride Index.
Make sure that if you do write about your engagement with politics or religion, you’re still writing about yourself as an independent individual. If you follow a certain religion, make sure that it’s clear in your essay that you engage with your religious practices thoughtfully, not without reflection.
In the end, it’s up to you to decide if writing about politics and religion is a risk that you want to take. Depending on the college, writing about your political activism or your engagement with your faith community may be a great topic that signals how you’d be an excellent fit for the campus. Personally, I also think that if your religion, political activism, or identity wouldn’t be supported on campus, you might want to rethink whether that college is a good fit for you to begin with.
Just remember that these topics can easily backfire, so be careful!
If you want to discuss your risky essay topic with me one-on-one, we’ll work together to make sure that your story is a good fit for each college on your list — and if the risk seems unwise, we’ll find other great topics for your college essays.
12. Personal tragedy
Many students feel that if they’re experienced a terrible tragedy, then this needs to become the focus of their college essays.
Can you write an amazing essay about overcoming a significant challenge, even a personal tragedy? Yes, this could be a powerful story if done well.
However, it’s also possible to write a fantastic, memorable essay about much more mundane things — a childhood toy, your favorite hairstyle, a specific color, an old pair of shoes.
Remember, you are not required to re-live your personal traumas through your college essays. If you want to write about something tragic that you experienced, that is absolutely your choice.
If you have experienced a personal tragedy, and if you choose to write about this for your college essays, know that there are some specific challenges inherent in this essay topic.
Too often, these essays end up focusing on the tragedy itself, not on you as an individual. Remember, the focus of your personal essays should be on you — more specifically, your core values and the things that spark your curiosity and passion the most strongly.
If you do write about a tragedy, make sure that this is only a small part of your essay. The “challenge” or “low point” of your essay should actually occur fairly close to the beginning. The rest of your essay should tell how you overcame that challenge and the insights you gained from the process.
I’m a fan of the advice of the College Essay Guy, who recommends dividing your “challenges” essay roughly into thirds. The first third introduces the challenges and the effects on your life. The second third of the essay describes the actions that you took in response, and the final third of the essay explores what you learned from dealing with this challenge.
If you’re not a skilled writer, then it might be smart to avoid writing about a personal tragedy, because done poorly it can backfire.
Alternatively, if you’d like to work one-on-one with me on your essay, we can make sure that your essay is memorable without being melodramatic, and that focuses effectively on you without dwelling to much on the tragedies you’ve overcome.
13. First heartbreak and personal romantic life
First heartbreak is the story of many novels, movies, song, and television shows. It’s a near-universal experience, and as a teenager, you’ve probably been grappling with some big emotions about love and relationships.
These stories are an important part of the human experience. If you have a story that’s especially poignant, you might someday turn it into great art.
However, your personal romantic life is not an appropriate subject for your college applications. This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many students want to write about their love lives!
It’s challenging to write about heartbreak without focusing on the other person — never the goal of your college essays.
Writing about romance also makes it hard for the college admissions officers to take you seriously. Yes, teen romance shouldn’t be dismissed because of your younger age — but to older adults, it may make you sound naive or immature. Focusing on romance may portray you as less focused on your studies or your other pursuits, and colleges ultimately want students who are going to be engaged members of their campus, not devoting their attentions to a romantic partner.
Ultimately, you want your college essays to show your intellectual curiosity, your engagement with your communities, your passions, and your core values. If you count love and connection among your most important values, try and find other ways to demonstrate these values.
14. The resume rehash
Many students feel like they need to cram all of their accomplishments into their essay.
The impulse to do this is understandable! After all, you’ve worked hard for years to get this far.
However, these essays can end up sounding like nothing more than an obvious rehash of your resume or activities list.
Don’t worry! Admissions officers will already have this information from the other parts of your application. They’ll see the tough classes you taken, the grades you’ve earned, the sports or other interests you’ve pursued for years, and the awards and other achievements you’ve won.
This information is already covered!
(And if there’s important information that isn’t clear in the rest of your application, like the details of a published research paper you worked on, or a college class that you took that doesn’t appear on your transcript, then that information can be communicated clearly in the “Additional Information” section of your application.)
Why devote the precious space of your personal essays to repeat information that the admissions officers already have?
Even worse, these essays often sound like bragging, and they suggest that you don’t know how to write well or build a coherent narrative.
Of course, it’s fine for your personal essays to mention some of your achievements in passing, or build an interesting narrative from one part of your activities list.
However, don’t worry about cramming all of your accomplishments and activities into your college essays. It’s not only unnecessary, it will make for a poor essay.
Not sure how to write about your achievements effectively? Each year I work with a limited number of students one-on-one on their college essays. Reach out at info@ivybloomacademics.com for more information or sign up directly here.
15. The obvious brag
Remember, your college essays are your chance to introduce yourself to the admissions officers, who are real people.
Imagine that you’re at a party and you meet someone new. The other guy launches into this speech, “Hi, I’m Todd. I’m the fastest freestyle swimmer in my state and I got a 1600 on the SAT!”
You’d probably stand there wondering what’s with this guy, and why he needed to regurgitate those facts as if he’s a used car salesman. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure I’ve met this guy before, but I didn’t want to talk to him any longer than I had to.
It’s the same for your college essays.
Of course you want for your college applications to ultimately show you in a good light. That’s why even though you can be “vulnerable” and “honest” about some personal flaws or challenges, you ultimately want to show how you’ve overcome challenges in your life, and you don’t want to admit that you’ve struggled academically, committed crimes, or faced challenges with your mental health.
However, there’s a fine line between highlighting some positive qualities and bragging.
Without a clear narrative, writing about your achievements in your essay is more likely to sound full of yourself.
It’s fine to include references to some of your achievements — but these should feel like a natural part of your story, and not the point of the story itself.
Remember, the point of your story is to reveal your core values and the way that you see your place in the world, not to list your achievements — that’s already covered elsewhere in your college applications.
You want to sound confident, not pompous. This can be a fine line, but an outside reader can help to spot where you’ve crossed over the line. You can get my expert opinions on your essay here, or you can ask a trusted friend, parent, or teacher for their input.
16. The vocabulary exercise
This isn’t a college essay topic, per se, but it’s such a common pitfall that I had to include it here.
Some students think that they need to prove how smart they are by using tons of impressive vocabulary words in their college essays.
Unfortunately, the result tends to sound like you’re vomiting up a thesaurus.
What’s more, it also raises suspicion for admissions officers that you may not have written your essays yourself — especially if you don’t have super-high grades and test scores for English.
(When I coach students one-on-one with their college essays, I help guide them through every step of the process but never write a word myself. That’s essential for maintaining integrity on college applications. Asking someone else to write your application for you or using and AI like ChatGPT is unethical and illegal, and it’s likely to backfire.)
Above all, your college essays should reveal your personality and give admissions officers a glimpse of your core values.
Using too many big words, especially if they’re words you wouldn’t normally use, is a bad idea.
Instead, try to write your essay in the same kind of voice you’d use if you’re talking to a smart friend or relative you admire.
Do you want to be articulate and precise? Absolutely. And sometimes there may be a “fancier” vocabulary word that perfectly encapsulates what you want to say.
But use these more unusual words sparingly.
When you’re working on style and wording in the final stage of your essay edits, ask a friend or family member to read your essays and see if they sound like your unique voice. If they can’t recognize you, rethink some of your vocabulary choices!
17. Sexist or racist opinions
Back when I was on an admissions committee for a graduate program at a top-20 university, there was a student who was about to receive an admissions offer — but then he revealed himself to be incredibly, inexcusably misogynist.
His sexism cost him this life-changing opportunity.
I’ve heard similar stories from admissions officers, including at some of the best colleges and universities in the country.
Plenty of students have removed themselves from the admit pile at highly-selective schools by revealing themselves to be clearly sexist and racist in their college essays.
Colleges want to find the most brilliant, accomplished students to admit to their incoming class — but they’re also shaping the next community of students on their campus, and they don’t want to poison this with positions that are inexcusable in 2023. Diversity of opinions is great, and there are some political views that will vary by campus, but I think by now there are some basic standards we can all agree on.
Not sure if your college essays contain statements that would trash your application? Try asking a friend to read them, or get a professional opinion from an essay coach. If you want to work one-on-one with me, I’ve helped many students avoid common college essay mistakes.
18. Drugs, cheating, and other illegal or unethical activities
This essay topic is another hard no for me.
A surprising number of students want to write the college essays about illegal or unethical things they’ve done.
Some students might write about having a wake-up call after an incident with drug use.
Other students might write about what they learned after they were caught cheating on a test, and how they’re learned the importance of academic integrity.
You may have a brilliant and moving story about dealing with addiction or realizing the fragility of life after a scary car ride with a drunk friend.
This is not a judgment call on my part — everyone makes mistakes, and what matters is the person you become, not the judgement errors you’ve made in your past.
However, there is no way that any of these topics is a good idea to share with the admissions officers.
Even if your story describes how you’ve learned and changed since then, it still establishes you as a potential risk to have on campus.
College essays create powerful first impressions, and there’s no reason to associate yourself with academic dishonesty or illegal activity at this crucial moment.
Save those stories for your friends, a magazine essay, your future memoir… just not your college essays.
19. Anxiety, depression, and self-harm
Mental health is incredibly important for everyone, and it’s great that our society is finally becoming more aware of this and reducing some of the stigma that keeps people from talking about it.
By the time you’re applying to college, struggles with anxiety or depression may have played a significant role in your life.
I want to stress that there’s nothing wrong with this! It’s a sign of strength to have the self-awareness to evaluate your mental health, and it’s great that Gen Z is more willing than past generations to seek out support.
Mental health struggles are also incredibly common. In the US, 42% of Gen Z has been diagnosed with a mental health condition, and 37% have received professional treatment or therapy.
I’ve worked with many students who want to write about overcoming a rough patch with depression or anxiety, or getting a wake-up call from a self-harm incident.
While these can be very powerful subjects, they’re topics that I strongly advise against for college applications.
Colleges are very worried about the mental health of their students. Some of this probably comes from genuine concern for their students, and some is more self-serving — it’s terrible publicity for a school when a student commits suicide.
In fact, there are unfortunately many stories of students who were pressured to take a leave of absence or withdraw from their course altogether because colleges didn’t want to take the risk of an incident on their campus.
Colleges want to admit students who will be happy and engaged on campus, and then graduate in four years. There are enough highly-qualified students that they don’t need accept a student who would be a known risk in their eyes.
Is this entirely fair? Of course not. But students need to be realistic about this.
If there’s a less serious aspect of your mental health and you feel you really must write about it, then make sure to focus on how you’ve grown since then. You’d want to present the challenge as something in your past that you overcame, not an ongoing concern.
But my strong advice would be to just avoid this topic altogether — there’s no need to take on such a risky topic for your college essays.
Write a great college essay and boost your admissions chances
If you’re not sure what to write your college admissions essays about, don’t worry — as long as you stay away from the cliche or risky topics in this list, there’s a nearly infinite number of great topics for your essays.
Just remember that in the end, the true subject of your essays is you. Your deepest values, your interests, your relationships to your communities and the world around you.
The college admissions officers want to get to know you — what fascinates you, what excites you, what makes you tick. The rest of your application material is mere statistics — your GPA, your class rank, your test scores, your academic rigor. The list of your activities and your letters of recommendation from teachers or other mentors can help to add more dimension, but really it’s your essays that bring you to life.
Any other material for your essay is just a vehicle to convey this essential information about you!
Want some help crafting great essays that accomplish this effectively? Each year I work one-on-one with a limited number of students to write great college essays. All of the words are the students’ own, but we work together through every step of the writing process.
As a professional editor, I used to help senior professors at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale edit their books and articles for publication. Now I’ve helped hundreds of students to discover the best stories within themselves to polish into great college admissions essays. I have to say, working with teenagers is so much more fun!
My students say my coaching makes writing their college essays much less stressful, and they’re able to complete their essays with confidence well before the submission deadlines.