How to write a college essay about a work of art

AAn admissions officer testifying in the Harvard admissions trial singled out one admitted student for a single act of connection: she took something centuries old from one of her classes and tied it to a protest movement then in the news. What impressed the officer was the line of thought, running from an old object through current events to her own life. Readers in Stanford's admissions office prized the same habit, and they saw it rarely, because almost no applicant chooses the kind of subject that makes it possible. Families tend to assume that subject belongs to art majors, so a future engineer or economist never considers it, and one of the most memorable essays open to a science or business student is never written.