In case it's not obvious: you want to figure out if you should try to pursue a high-variance or a low-variance strategy. If you think you've got a solid chance, you should choose a relatively safer essay topic. If you think you're unlikely to get in, choose something wilder that could either be a disaster or a slam dunk.
I suspect that wild topics are safer than you think. I figure college admissions officers are more about selecting a varied, colorful student body than making sure every student meets a certain set of criteria. Explicitly signalling that you're an intellectually curious introvert, as opposed to an extroverted club-leading go-getter, may actually be a good idea. My experience of elite university students is that intellectual curiosity is rare, so if you can convey that successfully it could set you apart.
In other words, what's your evidence for
If admissions officers could scan my brain, they would find a lot that would make them say, “How the hell could she think that?” – but not much of it would be positive.
? Here's some evidence I have: my writing about the singularity did not prevent UC Berkeley from admitting me as a transfer student. (Personal message me if you want to read my essays; I probably have them on my hard drive somewhere.)
Advice specific to another university: If Stanford doesn't offer you any aid and you want to save money, you might want to go to community college for a couple years and then transfer to UC Berkeley or UCLA. The UC system is optimized to receive transfer students from community colleges, and last I checked, overall transfer admission rates are actually substantially higher than freshman admit rates at UCB. Transfer students aren't really expected to do extracurriculars either, so your free time is your own.
(The community college I went to, De Anza College in Cupertino, was really good. My best friend was a Sri Lankan-native science fiction aficionado. Pretty much everyone I met was more interesting and down-to-earth than the people I knew in high school--I found UCB's student culture to be a significant step down. And some of the professors were better than UC Berkeley's best (ex: Peterson, a Lockheed project manager who taught math in the evenings using the Socratic method, and physics teacher Newton). Of course, most california community colleges are probably lamer. Note for younger high schoolers in California: if you pass this very easy test you can start attending at 16 like I did.)
The problem with answering these is that all of my best answers for these questions (“Newcomblike problems,” “Hey, do you want to join this rationality club I want to start?”, and “optimal philanthropy,” respectively) would take way more than 250 words to explain.
You should see this as a good sign, not a bad one. You've got more interesting stuff to talk about then you have room for. I would suggest brainstorming a long list of potential topics, then try to figure out which topics you brainstormed fit best with which questions.
In general, my assessment is that you have what the universities are looking for (intelligence, intellectual curiosity, drive) and you just need to find a way to credibly signal those qualities. I'd advise against trying to dumb yourself down by writing about relatively boring stuff like your algebra tutee for every essay (although having at least one essay that's completely divorced from the LW meme cluster is probably a good idea).
One very high-variance idea would be to write an essay criticizing the entire process students use to apply for college. Even if admissions officers are part of it, they don't necessarily endorse it, and this guy did give a talk at Stanford. It's not that unreasonable for you to write about the college admissions process--it is a primary focus of many high schoolers' lives, and this focus makes perfect sense and is entirely reasonable; I don't think high schoolers should be ashamed of this at all. You could gather some objective data from their friends about how high a priority they placed on getting in to a good school and how much time they put in to get there so your essay wouldn't be as anecdotal. (Send me a personal message if you want more ideas on this.)
Hmm, I actually jokingly considered going meta and writing an essay about the challenges of writing an essay to capture what's worthwhile about me, to capture what's worthwhile about me - but going empirical and studying the effects of the college application process is way better. It would show, not tell, that I'm dedicated to science. Thank you! (Not sure I can make it work well enough to be my top choice, but thank you for making me think of things in a different light.)
I need help writing a college application essay that will maximize my chances of getting into a school that the world considers prestigious. (17 years old, preparing to enter 12th grade at a central California high school as of this writing.)
Throughout high school, I resisted being over-scheduled, and basically eschewed all extracurricular activities in favor of having time to think and read. Even when my parents pushed me into things like tennis, dance, or debate clubs (ugh), I was secure in the belief that I could forgo them and rely on my grades and test scores to get me into a college that was good enough to earn a useful engineering degree and find a few interesting friends. (I was right.)
However, my priorities have changed, and I’m starting to really value the extra leverage prestige can bring me. I plan to start a Less Wrong/80,000 Hours club at whatever university I end up attending. I would have access to more intelligent, interested people at Stanford than at, say, UC Irvine. Perhaps more importantly, the club itself would have a better standing in the outside world if it were founded in Stanford. (This in addition to the fact that Stanford already has a world-class Decisions and Ethics Center that may be able to help.)
This is not to say I now regret not being an officer in a dozen useless clubs or participating in endless extracurricular activities. I do, however, regret not doing at least one really impressive, externally-verifiable thing like writing a book. Nothing in my life would make someone say, “Wow, how the hell did she do that?” If admissions officers could scan my brain, they would find a lot that would make them say, “How the hell could she think that?” – but not much of it would be positive.
So my question is, how do I write a personal statement essay, 250-500 words, that will leave an impression in an admissions officer’s mind, without lying or plagiarizing, given that my adolescence was spent thinking and reading, not *doing*? Each university then has 2-4 follow-up prompts (<= 250 words), such as these from Stanford:
The problem with answering these is that all of my *best* answers for these questions (“Newcomblike problems,” “Hey, do you want to join this rationality club I want to start?”, and “optimal philanthropy,” respectively) would take way more than 250 words to explain.
The focus on Stanford, by the way, is because my parents would be extremely unwilling to send me to a university on the East Coast, even if it were really prestigious. But feel free to give me general advice or advice specific to another university. :) If it actually happens, I'll be in a better position to convince them.
May Be Relevant:
I once tutored a girl in Algebra 1 over a period of three months, bringing her grades up from a D to a B. She stopped needing help and I didn’t go looking for another tutee.
I completed NaNoWriMo my freshman year – yeah, it was pretty bad.
I’ve been writing a daily essay on 750 words since December 2010, and have written over 518,000 words in 562 days – writing something 98% of the time, and completing my words 95% of the time. (Although a lot of the missed days were due to glitches in the early website eating my words.)
I entered the Science Fair with a couple friends, hated it because it crushed the spirit of curious inquiry under a predetermined experimental procedure with a predetermined result, and unsurprisingly didn’t win – although we got a certificate from the US Army.
I joined a community service club, hated it because we were just unpaid labor for rich people who didn’t need much help, but stayed anyway because my friends were in it.
General SAT: Reading and Writing scores slightly above the median for most prestigious universities, Math score slightly below. 800's on SAT Math II (Pre-calculus), SAT Biology Molecular, and SAT US History.
5's on AP Calculus AB, AP English Language, and other, less relevant AP's. Five AP classes so far taken, received A's, planning to take 6 more next year.
High probability of a good letter of recommendation from APUSH and Calculus teachers.
Thank you!
Edit: Fixed the hyperlink formatting.