What Topics To Avoid While Writing College Essays

Whether an essay is for application to a college or an assignment within that college, there are certain unspoken rules when it comes to college essays. Certain topics are overused or cliché while others are just not deemed pleasurable to read. Your professor will most likely give you a higher score the more interesting your paper is, and a college admissions boards will certainly accept you if they had a great time sinking into your essay. Either way, avoid the following topics if you can:

Your personal good fortune

Not every person who may read your essay has had the same opportunities you’ve had. Going on about how lucky you’ve been because you enjoyed a life of privilege will not gel well with the reader. These essays have a way of coming across as arrogant and self-centred. Someone’s viewpoint of your success will be more enjoyable to read if they see that you’ve overcome obstacles and triumphed despite certain challenges.

School type essays

Avoid the humdrum topics you used to write about in school. Holiday trips, family members, sport events and pets; try to rise above these juvenile subjects and show maturity in your thinking. Many new college students who did well in school fall into the ‘good enough’ trap when they write their first college essay, only to find that the bar has been raised and playtime is over.

Your misspent youth

Divulging some of the delinquencies of your past is a definite no-no! There’s no point in bringing up the mistakes of your past, even if you did rise above them and make an eventual success of your life. The fact is people would rather not read about stuff like that. It’s uninteresting, negative and actually pointless. Essays like these tend to denote an air of ‘living in the past’ whereas ‘living in the present’ is more appealing.

“This is what I think!”

It’s one thing to make your opinion known in your writing, but an overly opinionated essay will be quite detrimental to your score. Making an entire essay about what you think or how you feel does not make for read-friendly material at all. Topics like spirituality, staunch political beliefs, personal racial conflict or a detested person should preferably not find their way to your essay paper. Beliefs are good, but you don’t want to come across as too much of a fanatic.