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           College essays are, I suppose, a valuable tool for admission officers. The essays are the only section where a student can make his original and personal response.
           But are they really original? Are they really personal? Of course they must be - at least that is what I am told they should be, and aspiring students squeeze their overworked brains to come up with such interesting essays that they feel will communicate themselves well to the admission officers. But the more I think about this whole college application process, the more I am convinced that it must be very rare, if not impossible, for students to produce entirely honest writings that are truly poured out from the heart; almost always will college essays be somewhat affected, in one way or another. I wrote about my lack of hair for my Common Application essay. I said it taught me to embrace diversity and be proud of who I am. That is true, to a certain extent. But there were things that I had to leave out; and they were more essential parts of me than anything I had written and submitted to Cornell. I did not write that I learned from an early age that shit happens and I can do nothing about it. I did not write that the world is a cruel place, that I despise most of it, and that, even so, I could not give a damn about it right then because I was too preoccupied with a girl who would never love me. Johns Hopkins wants me to tell them what I would do if I had ten bucks and a day. I know exactly what to do - watch a movie and spend the rest on ice cream. But that is not what I will say on my application. Instead, I will have to reveal to them a grandiose plan to found a multi-million dollar business.
           Reading through a book with a selection of college essays, I could not help but let a smile slip because they were so phony, as Holden Caulfield would put it. Every one of them apparently learns a moral from every single event that occurs in their lives; everyone enjoys washing dishes and helping the disabled. If one had that book as the only source of information on our planet, then, then the Earth would seem a perfect place.
           Why do I not write what I really think? The answer is obvious - to get into these schools. I typed the last sentence 'I want to get into these schools', but deleted the 'I want' part because the usage of the word 'want' here, I feel, is not quite so appropriate. Anyway, as guilty and unsatisfied I might feel about it, I am going with the majority to maximise my chances of entering a good college; and that means excising the part of me that I think really is 'me'.