How to make a common college essay topic unique

RReaders in Stanford's admissions office, the office we learned from, see basketball essays in every stack, and one of them stood out as the work of a careful thinker. Students are told they can do anything they set their minds to, and this applicant began by disagreeing. Ability, he wrote, can be acquired through practice, while capacity is what you were born with.

He will never be six foot six. He can, however, make his ball handling, his shooting and his endurance as good as they can possibly be, and use every bit of capacity he has. The topic was ordinary and the essay was not, and the reason is a habit professors prize in a first-year student.