College essay topic

Thanks :) I appreciate that.

I am a little nervous about using topic #2...I entered a full scholarship that required many essays, and that was the topic of one. I ultimately did not receive that scholarship, so I am a bit paranoid to use something that was a part of that. However, my mentor said that was an excellent essay. Any thoughts? Should I just push past that and use it?

I will definitely try a few topics and then submit them to peer review!

Thanks for the encouragement. I really enjoy peer advising here and the response from peers has been amazing. I haven't been able to do much lately, though...life kind of has me down right now. Been so busy. Also, pretty sick of writing essays and worrying over the SAT :( I normally love writing essays, but I feel so un-inspired right now. I have entered so many, and yet I've gotten nothing.

I think I remember you responded to my homeschool post and said you were homeschooled. Do you feel like scholarship committees and colleges are prejudiced against homeschool students? I am certainly feeling that. There just seems to be a lot of distrust. Eg, the school i want to attend is test optional, but they want one from homeschoolers. The stinky thing is that I have a 4.0 gpa and the admissions counselor shared that in order to get the top scholarship, you will need a near-perfect SAT score to go with perfect GPA or else they will give you a smaller scholarship!! So she recommended test-optional but that is not an option since they want a score from me...UGH! Pretty discouraging.

Anyway, thanks for replying. Appreciate it.

Hi! Sorry for the time gap for this response.

Firstly, I think that if you truly trust your mentor, then you can not stress about submitting that particular essay. Also, a holistic college admissions officer will not hang your whole application on the essay. It depends on the college you want to apply to, whether they are holistic or not.

I totally understand about not being able to respond to the questions of our peers as much as I want to. I did it a lot in the previous school year and early summer. Life can fill a time book easily. I also totally understand entering a ton of scholarships and not getting anything. I've sort of resigned myself to that fact that I may not get any before I start college. In my junior year, I started entering more with essay's, but never got anything (and I used to consider myself a good writer). I've worked into the plans that I'm choosing the colleges on my list with the lowest possible tuition.

I'm glad you remembered that I am homeschooled! Previously, before Covid, I may have had a suspicion that colleges and scholarship people were a little prejudiced against homeschoolers, but not anymore. There is a rise in homeschooling in the U.S., and people are recognizing it. Certain colleges even have an admission officer catered to homeschoolers. Christian colleges especially are open to the unique perspective and drive of a homeschooler at their institution. Colleges are slowly recognizing that homeschoolers are the best thing that happened to them! We are independent, self-driven, time management gurus, etc. Of course, some colleges of a certain mindset may not be so open to us (their loss!). Possibly consider a college were you know you'll feel more welcome and get more funds. I know it won't be easy. I recently had to realize that my dream college wouldn't be a good fit for me at all. Now though, I have a new dream college.

Anyway, don't feel as though you are alone in this journey. :)

Also, I've already applied to one college, so if you need any other advice application-wise, I'm here to help.

Good luck this year! :)

Thanks so much. I relate to a lot of this...especially the part about writing tons of essays and being a good writer, yet still receiving nothing. Thankfully, the college I want to attend has a lot of scholarship opportunities itself, so I'm not hopeless :) Good luck to you, too. Let's finish high school strong, and show the world that homeschoolers are the best ;)