College Athlete Writing Secondary Applications

[revrick]

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Hello internet, looking for some advice for secondaries.
I'm a college athlete (baseball) and am finding that whenever I look at prompts for secondaries, most of my ideas for them are from my experiences as a college athlete. Overcame obstacles, times I was not up to the task, reached a goal as a team, etc. I do not want to be one-dimensional, but I spent a lot of my time in school with baseball and got a lot out of it. A lot of the lessons I learned were from baseball. Would it be bad if most of my essays were from experiences in baseball?

 

[WedgeDawg]

Considering that most schools are only going to see 2-4 of your essays, I think it's fine. It seems like a large part of who you are and if you do it correctly, I think these could make strong essays. However, I would try to talk about something related to medicine somewhere in your application a little bit, otherwise you might give off the impression that you didn't take anything away from your medically related experiences.

 

[revrick]

Considering that most schools are only going to see 2-4 of your essays, I think it's fine. It seems like a large part of who you are and if you do it correctly, I think these could make strong essays. However, I would try to talk about something related to medicine somewhere in your application a little bit, otherwise you might give off the impression that you didn't take anything away from your medically related experiences.

Thanks man, solid advice. That shouldn't be a problem.

 

[rememberthetitans]

Different sport, same issue. My sport has been the most significant thing in my life for over 15 years so trying to talk about other things just seems insincere. Here's to hoping we can both find a good balance!!

 

[ridethecliche]

I made a spreadsheet with all my secondary prompts (for every school) then ended up writing essays that had a high applicability to the highest number of common prompts. This allowed me to reuse the majority of my ~10 essays for 44 secondaries.

I highly recommend doing this if you want to keep your sanity.

 

[steelersfan1243]

Can we get some further comments on this? Doesnt one dimensionality hurt an app?

 

[WedgeDawg]

Can we get some further comments on this? Doesnt one dimensionality hurt an app?

There are plenty of other opportunities to show multidimensionality (personal statement, most meaningful activities, letters of recommendation, interviews, etc). Having essays about the same experience isn't necessarily bad as long as they aren't all saying the exact same thing. What the essay show about an applicant is more important than what the applicant actually did.

 

[revrick]

Different sport, same issue. I want to avoid the "dumb jock" stereotype, but the fact is that my sport has been the most significant thing in my life for over 15 years so trying to talk about other things just seems insincere. Here's to hoping we can both find a good balance!!

Same man. I think it is important, as so many of the things they ask about (and therefore care about) are so related to athletics. Like you said, just have to find a good balance.

 

[WedgeDawg]

No one in this admissions process is going to think you're dumb just because you're an athlete, particularly if you have the stats to back your application up.

 

[md-2020]

Hello internet, looking for some advice for secondaries.
I'm a college athlete (baseball) and am finding that whenever I look at prompts for secondaries, most of my ideas for them are from my experiences as a college athlete. Overcame obstacles, times I was not up to the task, reached a goal as a team, etc. I do not want to be one-dimensional, but I spent a lot of my time in school with baseball and got a lot out of it. A lot of the lessons I learned were from baseball. Would it be bad if most of my essays were from experiences in baseball?

No, as long as you have worthwhile things to say.