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Secondary Essay Topic Advice
- Thread starter Groggs
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- Pre-Medical
I think ....
Challenge Essay:
This is easy, #2 for me. Because you can have the opportunity to talk about how you were able to think on your feet, gain skills you didn't have before, etc. etc. And you also managed time well, which is what you were getting on with #1, but #2 conveys the added "I was put on the spot with pressure and handled it well" factor.
Unsuccessful/Failure:
I think for a medicine perspective, they might like people who understand the struggles of doing research. I think personally for my challenge essay, I will resort to wetlab research stories where **** just never worked. You can also take this opportunity to talk about research in general. Like talk about how you needed patience with the assays time and again after it didn't work, how you tried different things (shows you think out of the box), etc. etc.
Number 1 is too general, and I think it's not as specific. I think they want to hear specific stories or experiences. The research has an advantage because it's narrow enough you can talk about like that one experiment that just sucked but you kept at it. Or you can talk about project in general, but its still narrow enough to keep it concise and to the point.
Number 2 is great, but I find it hard for medical school professionals to relate. Although marathons take dedication, this seems like a time where you just weren't serious enough (correct me if I'm wrong). I think it's harder to write about something where you just actually didn't work hard enough rather than research where you could work like 98798237 hours and still get nothing (comes across as a tougher failure to handle). With research, there's multiple opportunities to highlight things you learned even though you failed. With the marathon story, it seems more like a "Oh I'll try again because of unfortunate circumstances", rather than something concrete you learned about yourself.
Number 3 is good, if you can talk about specific things you did as a football player, but also it's in high school. I think colleges would definitely regard a story about high school a little less than a story in college. Since you didn't continue (or you didn't say you did) football in college, I don't think this is the best route.
Challenge Essay:
This is easy, #2 for me. Because you can have the opportunity to talk about how you were able to think on your feet, gain skills you didn't have before, etc. etc. And you also managed time well, which is what you were getting on with #1, but #2 conveys the added "I was put on the spot with pressure and handled it well" factor.
Unsuccessful/Failure:
I think for a medicine perspective, they might like people who understand the struggles of doing research. I think personally for my challenge essay, I will resort to wetlab research stories where **** just never worked. You can also take this opportunity to talk about research in general. Like talk about how you needed patience with the assays time and again after it didn't work, how you tried different things (shows you think out of the box), etc. etc.
Number 1 is too general, and I think it's not as specific. I think they want to hear specific stories or experiences. The research has an advantage because it's narrow enough you can talk about like that one experiment that just sucked but you kept at it. Or you can talk about project in general, but its still narrow enough to keep it concise and to the point.
Number 2 is great, but I find it hard for medical school professionals to relate. Although marathons take dedication, this seems like a time where you just weren't serious enough (correct me if I'm wrong). I think it's harder to write about something where you just actually didn't work hard enough rather than research where you could work like 98798237 hours and still get nothing (comes across as a tougher failure to handle). With research, there's multiple opportunities to highlight things you learned even though you failed. With the marathon story, it seems more like a "Oh I'll try again because of unfortunate circumstances", rather than something concrete you learned about yourself.
Number 3 is good, if you can talk about specific things you did as a football player, but also it's in high school. I think colleges would definitely regard a story about high school a little less than a story in college. Since you didn't continue (or you didn't say you did) football in college, I don't think this is the best route.
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I like #2 for Challenge and #3 for failure! I think it's good to pick a failure that you actually overcame, not one that you're still trying to overcome 🙂
