salt

but hello! hello to my best friend especially

bald

wears a uni khaki cap

goes to Costco

has a stupidly large umbrella from Costco

likes matcha

Colorado

brought two catering trays of donuts to lecture once bc the group he volunteers for didn’t need them

is the youngest in his volunteer group

made his wife cry when he said her vote didn’t matter in presidential election in a blue state

supported my mamdani obsession

“Alright, let’s gets started…”

drinks Kirkland sparking water

has a little Bernie sanders in his office

why was I so fucking dramatic during the intro

my (two) friends have tomodachi life and they both created a mii of me

originally it started out as a joke to see how I would act as a polisci lad and if I should get a copy of the game for my writing ocs to interact like how friend one has their game set up and to spur some writing inspo and uhhhhhh

they’ve been giving me updates on what my mii has been doing on their islands and so far I’ve:

been the cause of four separate fights with miis im friends with, including friend one’s brother

haven’t attempted forgiveness even when given a “getting over urself” book

fallen in love with friend two

bonded over and became friends with friend two over connor storrie’s ass on their island

bonded over and became friends with friend two over beautiful and hot women on friend one’s island

bonded over and became friends with friend one’s miis thru terrorism, hardcore smut, dead queen elizabeth, the bible, Latter Day Saints, scamming old ppl, among other things

my younger sibling has begun drafting and writing their college essay and it reminded me of the primary one I’ve written

so I wanted to impart some of my personal advice and then review my sibling’s essay

btw my sib has given me permission to review it on here ↓

the parameters of this essay, according to common app, are as follows:

The Common App personal essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Choose the option that best helps you answer that question and write an essay of no more than 650 words, using the prompt to inspire and structure your response. Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don't feel obligated to do so. (The application won't accept a response shorter than 250 words.) (Collegewise Staff, 2025).

and the essay prompts for 2026-7 are:

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design (Common App, 2026).

personhood

The Common App personal essay demonstrates your ability to write clearly and concisely on a selected topic and helps you distinguish yourself in your own voice. What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? (Collegewise Staff, 2025).

it’s a memoir with a moral, whether resolved or not

make it personal, distinguish urself, and share relevant life experiences. the thing about the world is ur unique experiences as a unique individual tend to overlap with the unique experiences of other unique individuals. part of why this happens is because so many ppl are applying to higher ed and some of the reliance of having a striking essay is to stand out. if everyone stands out, then no one stands out. the tropes of trauma, first-gen college students, families, classism, insert other structural ill are both warn out yet what the college essay is. it’s a hypocritical structure that everyone who applies to universities has to succumb to.

have a therapy session with urself and journal. doesn’t need to be complicated or negative. note down life events, discuss weird memories, hyper analyze the mundane and repetitive, look thru photos, ruminate with friends or family if ur close with them bc something will trigger some type of inspiration lengthy and meaningful enough to set u a centimeter apart from the crowd at that moment to write about.

and if nothing else, ppl allegedly can lie during their writing. admissions reading ur essays don’t know who u r nor 100% of ur experiences. a little fib to entire fabrication can occur, but it’s a sliding scale of risk and could technically be recognized as academic dishonesty (Northern Illinois University, n.d.). the opportunity is there and becomes a matter of taking advantage of it or not.

word count

…write an essay of no more than 650 words…Remember: 650 words is your limit, not your goal. Use the full range if you need it, but don't feel obligated to do so. (The application won't accept a response shorter than 250 words.) (Collegewise Staff, 2025).

no book chapters or autobiographies. put that shortened attention span to use and get to the point. for reference, the Gettysburg address and FDR’s address to congress after Pearl Harbor respectively fit within the word limit

the most common problem I hear is 650 isn’t enough. and it isn’t when delving deep into the prompt.

shorten and condense the essay, pick and choose what’s important and delete what’s not. combine words and make conjunctions. open the thesaurus and find synonyms.

or scrap the entire thing and start again with a fresh slate.

prompts

u can approach the prompts in two ways. u can

write ur essay first, then see which prompt it fits in best

choose a prompt, then write the essay around it

I recommend using approach one bc based on my application, the prompts by common app feel so broad, overlapping, and generic that my own experiences and ideas didn’t fit in nicely to be sorted within each prompt with I’d say around 60% confidence.

if unsure, just pick option seven (Common App, 2026).

getting feedback

while sharing it with friends is fine and dandy, it’s imo best to share the essay with a writing tutor or English teacher first. not just bc they’re more qualified and have seen other college essays, but tutors and teachers have written their own essays and have first hand experience of the troubles, meaning more specific praise and advice.

while reviewing my sib’s essay, I have to remind myself that while I have tutor training, I also can’t give a neutral or third-person viewpoint about the piece, having experienced this in parallel.

that said, my sib’s essay, in its current state as a first draft, is fine. the theme of identity, of the restaurant and resentment of the related memories, is present; it needs to be developed. to me, it touches on the subject of the immigrant household trope a bit much and reads like other college essays about similar immigrant-owned businesses experiences, so a more defined memory would probs work best for the essay.

final thoughts

each essay and its writing process is unique, but the main purpose of the college essay and those like it is to get into the higher ed program. after that, it becomes whatever u want it to be. that’s what happens when admissions wants a more “holistic” application approach.

when I remembered one of the first things my career development (freshman year) -> comparative politics/latin american studies (for sophomore year) prof told the lecture hall on the first day of class.

I only have the beginning of the quote word for word from my notes that day, but the shock of his statement made the entire hall laugh. something roughly along the lines of this, because he wanted to egg on engineering students and their degrees:

“Fact: Most suicide bombers are engineers. It’s a little joke I like to start out these classes with, because the majority of political scientists don’t know how to make one, including me, so I think we’re a little bit more ethical because of that. Please don’t commit terrorism, though.”

If I’m not supposed to write things in blood

why does it flow from my arms thick as ink?

It clots and dries with such a texture

not even the best can recreate.

The reddest pigments I’ve ever worked with

cannot scab my life properly onto

a product of death.

Skin envelopes and receives only at the spout.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/84650521

this was an assignment for my italian literature and culture studies class where we had to retell a short story so i made mine based on the chapter of kalilah and dimnah: how anusharwan sent barzawayh to india to transcribe kalilah and dimnah set in modern day and lovey-dovey

i know kalidasa was a real person but most everything is fictional except for his name and status as philosophical author, same goes for the other characters mentioned

side note: i got a b+ after my italian professor and his grad teaching assistant had to read this for my grade