While admissions officers reviewing your application essay might not remember every word in it, they may well recall how they felt about you as a candidate for their college. Your goal in the essay is to leave the admissions staff member with an impression of you as an interesting and emotionally intelligent person who would contribute on campus. In order to do this, avoid the topics below in your college admissions essay.

Avoid These Topics

My Backpack

The contents of your backpack or bedroom as a metaphor for your life.

The Dead Grandma Essay

Make sure the reader knows more about you than your relative after they’ve read your essay.

Cannibalistic Hamsters

Anything which would make the admissions officer react with “Ewwww!” And, yes, I did once read an admission essay on cannibalistic hamsters.

The Roommate Exclusionary Essay

Avoid topics that don’t pass the “roommate test.” If after reading the essay, the admissions officer cannot imagine the writer being someone’s roommate, it’s not an appropriate topic.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll

Avoid any topic you would not want your Mom to read. This is also known as the oversharing essay.

Gimmicks

Avoid anything gimmicky, such as directions to the college from Mapquest. (Prompt was to discuss a significant place.)

The Grudge Essay

Don’t use the essay to vent your frustrations about anything. No one likes a complainer.

The Essay Essay

Don’t write about writing the essay. We’ve already read that one. Don’t do it.

Honorable Mentions

• Everyone Knows How Smart I Am
• My Life Is Like Taking Out the Garbage
• Using Grades for College Admissions is Unfair
• I Heard You Are Rated the Best Party School
• My Japanese Fighting Fish Fred and Ethel
• Why I Hate People
• Performing an Autopsy on My Dog
• Why I Hope College Isn’t as Boring as HS
• My Victory over Using a Booster Seat in the Car
• My Family is the Worst Ever
• You Probably Don’t Want to Admit Me

If you were planning to write on any of these topics, you should probably check out the page How can I write a great college essay?

Proceed with Caution

The following are possible topics for a college application essay, but tread carefully, as they can end up sounding trite.

The Big Game Essay

The Big Game and/or sports as a metaphor for life. Give your essay to a non-athlete and ask if it makes sense to someone not involved in sports.

The Community Service Essay

Essays extolling the virtues of happy poor people can sound patronizing and it is hard to offer a fresh take on an often-used subject.

Bonus! The List of Forbidden Words and Phrases

Every year I ask my colleagues in admissions what are the most over-used or ineffectual words and phrases that they never want to read again in a college admission essay. Here’s the current list:

• Actually
• Plethora
• Awesome
• Myriad
• Well-rounded
• Amazing
• Totally
• Passion/passionate
• Incredible, wonderful
• Great, outstanding
• I believe….
• I think….
• I feel that….
• I am a diverse person.
• According to the dictionary….
• Never since that time have I….
• And that’s when I realized….
• I knew at/after that moment that….
• Essays written in the third person and ending with “yes, that girl is me!”
• As a result, I changed in so many ways (but no examples are given to illustrate the changes)