The worst time to have a heart
attack is during a game of charades.
~Demetri Martin~
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20 Hilariously Awful College Admissions Essays“When applying to college we were told about a kid that applied to Harvard. Their prompt asked them to propose their own question and answer it. The kid asked himself “Do you play the trombone?” His answer: “No.” Of course, he got in. I’m not sure what the moral of the story was…maybe to think outside the box?”
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“The old application for the Honors College had some required essays, and one year they asked, ‘If you were a candy bar, what would you be and why?’ It’s been over 15 years, and I’ll always remember the essay where the student answered, ‘It would depend on whether or not I would want to be eaten.’ He was admitted.”
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“I applied to Hofstra this year and their only supplemental essay was, ‘Why are you applying to Hofstra?’ I submitted ‘You gave me a fee waiver.’ I was accepted and received a scholarship of $80,000 over four years.”
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“My friend wrote one of his essays about how Chipotle is essential to his life. He was accepted.”
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“I used my latest AP art history essays for every essay question. Literally, it said things like ‘Why do you want to go here?’ and I attached an essay about the artistic merits of the famous toilet art of Dada movement, another one was about the Baroque period. I ended up getting in AND getting a decent scholarship/aid package…”
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“My dormmate applied to UC Berkeley with excellent grades… but also an essay of… ‘What do Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, George Washington….etc, etc, etc have in common?’ Answer: ‘They were all amazing people. So am I. Please accept me to your school.’”
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“I know someone who told U of Michigan that the way they evaluate students is faulty and that GPAs/test scores are useless. He got in.”
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“One of the essays to get into the university that I attend was, what is your favorite word and why? My friend who now attends this university wrote ‘Duh, duh.’”
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“I had a friend in high school who applied early decision to Wharton. They had ‘Write page 264 of your autobiography,’ as an essay question, so he wrote half a sentence along with a note that said ‘Page 264 was the last page of the chapter. I thought about giving you page 263 instead but felt that would be dishonest.’ He got in.”
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“We had one question along the lines of ‘what is the biggest challenge you’ve ever had’ and one kid answered with ‘this application.’”
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“I wrote mine about Cottonelle wipes and how they changed my life. The essay started off witty and funny and after the first paragraph, I seriously discussed Cottonelle wipes superiority to toilet paper. I sent it to every school I applied to.”
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“When I was in high school, we had an admissions person visit and she said one student wrote an essay about how people either really like tomatoes or really hate them and how there is no in-between.”
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“There was this one essay that I heard about where the prompt was ‘In 500 words, tell us what your favorite word is and why’ and the student answered ‘brevity.’ He got in.”
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“I wrote an essay about how Spongebob changed my life, and it ended up being many people’s favorite college essay.”
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“I wrote my application essay about growing my first facial hair. I definitely got in.”
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“For my college acceptance essays, I wrote about how the video game character Pajama Sam was my personal hero. Accepted to three out of four and waitlisted at the fourth.”
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“When I was working in admissions at a university, I dealt strictly with international students. I had a young woman who applied to the university and was looking for a scholarship (about 20 to 25 percent of all international applicants cannot afford the fees and request a full scholarship. Less than 1 percent of those applicants receive it). She wrote how we could take her passport and make her work/live at school until her debt had been paid off. She went into great detail about how she was OK living in a cupboard and she’d only ask to be let free once a month, but would absolutely return. Needless to say, her request was denied.”
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“Worst case I’ve seen is a kid openly admit in his application essay that he was a habitual cheater throughout high school but it taught him how to become resourceful and think outside the box. I’ve never seen an application get denied faster.”
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“As I work privately with over 250 college admissions applicants per year, the worst one was by a girl who is a triplet. The entire essay was ‘I’m a triplet’ and said nothing else — zero.”
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“I put my college essays online. My main essay was about a trip to Belarus, which was (and still is) under a Soviet-style government. Someone emailed me to thank me, saying he had copied my essay, except he changed it to be about his trip to a regional soccer tournament. I was like…uh, did you at least take out all the stuff about Communism?”
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Good morning everyboomie.
Well compared to some of those admissions essays I have no imagination, or creativity.
Not that some of them didn't take more audacity than creativity or imagination.
Come to think of it, it probably took as much audacity to approve them as write them.
Audacity born from laziness?
Or just plain ignorance or apathy.
Well that will give me something to ponder on Thursday if it rains again all day like today.
Have a happy day everyone.
joe
acebook
witter
... I went to college before they invented the essay ... some great stories!!
Happy Day wished for all! 
