Is it cliche to write my common app personal essay about Football and how my injuries from it?
I am senior in highschool, and I am writing my common app personal essay. For my essay topic I was wondering if it was too cliche to write about football and how the injuries I sustained from led me to appreciate health care professionals more and how it made me want to pursue a career in medicine to help people with sports related injuries?
And is it cliche to write about how football shaped the person I am?. Ex: Hardworking, accepting of criticism, new friendships, connections, patience....
Earn karma by helping others:
1 answer
This is just my opinion...
From your tone, I do realize that you're going to feel the essay, and that's something admissions officers often look for. But a lot of our peers will be writing similar essays. And if not for football, they will be talking about their involvement in track, or baseball etc. Your essay will have an impact only if you frame your thoughts really well and present them in a very convincing way. Strengthen your application by delving deeper into the connection between sport and your passion for medicine.
Maybe you can write a little bit about how football developed in you a sense of patience, and how you reflected on that and realized that medicine is something you want to pursue because a doctor's job requires one to have an infinite amount of patience. However, I would recommend you do not write much about this if you aren't able to express it very convincingly (At least if you are applying to top universities because that is a cliched topic).
Your chance of acceptance
Your chancing factors
Community Guidelines
To keep this community safe and supportive:
- Be kind and respectful!
- Keep posts relevant to college admissions and high school.
- Don’t ask “chance-me” questions. Use CollegeVine’s chancing instead!
I agree with this response. Your essay does have a bit of a twist on the sports injury cliche, as it's not the standard: "I got injured, worked really hard, got better, and succeeded." I would focus as much as possible on the healthcare-sport connection, and try to make it clear as soon as possible in the essay that it's not a standard sports injury piece.