For many students, writing an essay is the most complicated part of their admission process. Most often, the first problem is choosing a topic for the essay. For example, applicants try to write about their pets or sports achievements, which is the best way to send your essay right into a trash can. We’ve talked to a few experts who are familiar with the admission process, to find out what topics you must avoid. Let’s take a look at the list of the worst essay topics.
The full list of your accomplishments
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- . Nobody is interested in reading about how good you are in everything. Let others judge you by discovering your experiences and feelings.
Sports. Even if football or basketball is your only strong side, don’t write about it. There are millions of applicants who think that such a topic is a great idea, so you won’t impress the admission officers with such a trivial essay.
Deep thoughts on how lucky you are. If you were born with a silver spoon, you don’t need to share details of your privileged life with others. Honestly, nobody is interested in your fancy clothes and weekends at the best resorts.
Un-essays. You may be really smart and creative, and classical forms may make you feel bored, but don’t overuse your creativity. Your main goal is to get into a college. Streams of random thoughts or poems won’t be appreciated by a commission, so keep such approaches for the future, when you’ll be accepted.
Controversial topics. Religion and politics – these are two things that divide people and raise controversies in a matter of seconds. These are definitely bad topics for your admission essay.
Illegal activity. Things like arrests, alcohol, and drugs are not what the commission should know about you. Even if you’ve changed, keep such episodes from your life in the past. Your sexual life is also an inappropriate subject to write about (even if it’s quite interesting).
Volunteering. It’s good if you had a trip to the third world country to help disadvantaged, but you are not alone, and it’s not a good topic for your essay. Choose it only in case you want to write about a particular experience that influenced your personality.
The most important person/thing in your life. Such essays are basically about nothing in particular, and they are really boring. Don’t choose these topics unless you want to see your readers yawning.
Someone’s death, divorces, and other tragedies. Such topics are sad, but it’s not the reason why we suggest avoiding them. First of all, many people have been through such situations, so your essay won’t be unique. The second point is that they are too challenging to describe them well. And never write about your pets – admission officers hate such essays.
Humor. Don’t expect others to have the same sense of humor as you. Your essay may include some funny moments, but never fill your essay with jokes intentionally, trying to make it funny. There are no colleges specialized in stand up, so your effort won’t be appreciated.
Best Topics for Your Compare & Contrast Essay
Sometimes you get a great opportunity to choose a topic for your compare and contrast essay. This opportunity is so exciting! Well, during first couple minutes it seems to be so. But then you start searching, and it turns out to be not easy at all, so you just sit staring at the blank Word window, and trying to figure out what you should write about. Don’t worry, we know how it happens, and we have some topics that you will like for sure!
Sometimes you have to compare characters from some book, or compare two books/movies/people, etc. We suggest you paying attention to characteristics that are most noticeable. If it’s a person, you certainly have to write about his or her appearance, social status, age, origin, job, education, and so on.
Your compare and contrast essay must begin with the introduction, where you determine what exactly you are going to compare. For example, if you have to write about two characters from a certain book, you must not only introduce these characters, but also give your readers a basic understanding of the book itself, as well as of its context, and author’s intention. Every compare and contrast essay is based on analysis of behavior in the same situations, under the same circumstances. When your essay is almost done, you have to write your conclusions, which is a summary of key characteristics that describe characters.
We made this list of compare and contrast topics for everyone who is stuck with the choice. There are topics about almost everything: brands, psychology, literature, health, history, etc. If you want to be sure that your topic is unique, we suggest researching same essays on the internet.
Topics on Literature
- “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” VS “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”
- “Gulliver’s Travels” VS “Robinson Crusoe”
- Mr. Rochester from “Jane Eyre” VS Mr. Dancy from “Pride and Prejudice”
- Tom Sawyer, Peter Pan, and Oliver Twist: similarities and differences
- Sonya and Raskolnikov from “Crime and Punishment”
- “Fight Club”: differences between the book and the movie
- “The Great Gatsby” VS “Martin Eden”
- Similar plot lines: “Twilight” & “Fifty Shades of Grey”
- Main characters from “Strange Case of Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Portrait of Dorian Grey”
- “Hunger Games” VS “The Lord of Flies”
Topics on History
- Concepts of Schiller and Kant
- Egyptian and Greek religions
- Differences and similarities in geography of Mesopotamia and Egypt
- Monarchy in two Scandinavian countries
- Judaism VS Christianity
- US economics VS Soviet economics (1945-1973)
- Codes of Manu and Hammurabi
- Ancient Roman VS Ancient Greek deities
- Ethics of Protestantism VS ethics of the Old Believers
- Renaissance VS Middle Ages
Topics on Brands
- Pizza Hut VS Domino’s Pizza
- Characters from Star Wars VS characters from Star Trek
- Xiaomi VS Apple
- Caterpillar VS Timberland
- DC Comics VS Marvel
- Beats by Dr. Dre VS AirPods
- Hulu VS Netflix
- Body Shop VS Lush
- Harley Davidson VS Suzuki
- Zara VS H&M
Topics on Personality
- Similarities between Mozart and Hans Zimmer
- Paul McCartney and Jony Ive
- Historical similarities between Josef Bell and Sherlock Holmes
- Mother VS father (topic about your childhood)
- Thomas Bolty VS Dr. House
- Muammar Gaddafi VS Saddam Hussein
- Elon Musk and Tony Stark: differences and similarities
- Richard the Lionheart VS Tokugawa Ieyasu: knights and samurai
- Similarities between Dart Vader and Oedipus
- Differences between Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler
Topics on Psychology and Health
- Self-esteem of preschoolers and teenagers
- Vaping VS smoking
- Children from orphanages and children from families
- Down syndrome VS autism
- Western VS Eastern diagnostics
- Alcoholism among men and women
- Theories of B. Skinner VS theories of J. Watson
- Family in media VS family in the real life
- Homicide VS suicide
- I and II types of bipolar disorders
Worst Topics for College Admission Essays
An interesting fact: some worst topics are at the same time most common topics. We decided to provide you with a list of topics to avoid, because we know that choosing a topic is a difficult task. There are many reasons why students keep choosing boring and typical topics for their essays. Somebody may think that the reason is a lack of creativity, but it’s certainly wrong, because most students know how to use their creativity. Maybe they have problems with gumption? It doesn’t seem to be true because some students even try to write an anti-essay (we will talk about it further).
Given that most often students need to write narrative essays, a topic is extremely important. However, the exact same topics may lead either to good or bad essays.
Here is a boring essay: a brief report of Jason’s trip to Indonesia with his parents and sister, where he volunteered at the school.
Here is a really good essay: Jason has been to Indonesia, where he met an old Indonesian woman who never had a chance to learn how to read. She couldn’t learn it because she’s from a very poor family. Jason became friends with her and started teaching her…
Well, what is a key difference between these two essays? The second one provides you with interesting details that make you want to read more, while the first essay doesn’t have anything intriguing. Narrative essays should draw readers’ attention to details and create a live picture so that everyone could imagine your situation and feel what you felt.
Before you decided to write about something, we suggest checking out our list and making sure that you don’t write on one of the following subjects.
- A summary of your accomplishments.
First of all, nobody likes blowhards. The second point is that such essays are usually long and boring, being about nothing in particular. Of course, you have to show your strong sides, but if you just tell people what you’ve achieved, it will be the worst approach. Let them decide what a person you are. They can do it by learning your experiences. Only others can assess you, you don’t have to tell them what to think.
- Sensitive and controversial topics.
Imagine you sitting at the Thanksgiving table. Don’t talk about religion or politics. You may have some strong beliefs or be really passionate about some issues, but your admission essay is aimed to gain admission, and nothing else, so don’t raise controversies.
- Sports.
No matter how good you are in sports, all essays on sports are basically the same. They are very predictable, so there’s nothing that would motivate your readers to keep reading. There are millions of other topics, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you to choose something else to write about. Just believe us, admissions officers have seen thousands of essays about great victories and awful defeats, so don’t test your luck.
- Humor.
Of course, you can write about some funny situation, but don’t try to be funny. The main thing about humor is that it should be natural, so if you catch yourself trying to write another joke, it means that you’re really close to failing. No one will appreciate your attempts to be funny, especially given that you can write a good essay without using unnecessary humor.
- You are so lucky! You have so many opportunities!
We get it. It’s good if you appreciate how privileged you are, but please, don’t write the whole essay about it. Usually, such essays are quite boring. If you don’t want to see eyes rolled, avoid such things. The only exception is if you mention your privileges to tell a story of how you used some special opportunity, or how you refused to use it, in order to overcome new unusual challenges.
- Trips and volunteering.
This is one of the most popular topics for admission essays. Moreover, it’s a common cliché. Your readers know how people travel and try some volunteering activities. It doesn’t mean that you cannot mention your experiences, just make sure that your entire essay isn’t devoted to your mission trip to El Salvador. If you really want to write about it, provide your readers with as many details as possible. What people and situations inspired you, and why? Maybe something unexpected and extraordinary happened? If so, it may be the only reason to write about your trip.
- Unnecessary self-expression.
We have already mentioned anti-essays at the beginning. What did we mean? Sometimes applicants think that they are too creative and smart to put themselves in strict boundaries of boring classical forms, so they try to create something completely different from any other college essay. Poems, songs, streams of random thoughts, and sarcastic drafts may seem creative and exciting, but don’t expect admissions officers to appreciate your effort.
- Illegal or immoral behavior.
Jail, arrests, alcohol, drugs, and sex are certainly the topics that you must avoid. Even if you learned much from such experiences, we suggest that you have had other important events in your life. You can write how you changed your life and became a new person, but still, you don’t need others to judge you, so don’t provoke them. Even if something has happened a long ago, your goal is to show your strong sides.
- The most important place/thing/person in your life.
This is exactly what a second grader would write about. The college commission isn’t interested in essays that even a child can write.
- Tragic events.
Let’s be honest, everyone has been through the death of somebody important, or divorce. Your essay must be unique, so avoid obvious topics that everyone can choose. You don’t need to be one of the hundred applicants who wrote about how their granny died. We suggest writing on such a topic only in case you’re able to focus on your personal feelings and lessons that changed your life. Don’t describe the sad situation, write about yourself in it.