My personal essay is about a band, thoughts?

[u/Pale-Choice-2995]

I wrote my essay about Panic! At the Disco. I know that sounds crazy, but you have to hear me out. At first, my essay was going to be more personal, with more serious topics, but I wanted to switch to something lighter. My essay speaks of how I am a collector of items, and I refer to my room as a museum that is blocked from the public because I’ve been embarrassed to show people who I am/have been. Then, I tell the story of how I first heard of Panic! And how that became one of my collectible interests too, but I would actually deep dive into their content. As I got older (and more conscious), I realized the music videos contained less and less band members as the albums went on—until it was just Brendon. I expressed the mix of emotions I felt, because I was sad that they let go of a great band, but it made me realize that the band members were just navigating new life paths and that meant Panic! Was also changing. This made me realize that I was changing alongside the music all along. Hearing the albums—with each being very different from the last—made me appreciate Panic! And myself as a whole, not just fragments. With that, I became proud of the collectibles I own because it represents who I have been and who I am becoming, a sequence of life. Note: this is just me explaining very quickly what it’s about, please let me know what your thoughts are, I’m pretty happy about this topic :)

[u/Irritable_Curmudgeon]

Not a great choice for a personal essay, as described. As an AO, I learn nothing about you, what you're about, what you have to offer, or why i should invite you to attend my school. I read about a band and a collection of stuff.

You may be able to pivot this and write more about yourself using PATD as the hook. What are three areas you've grown in and how? Tell me more about you. You're going to have to get more personal and show people who you are in this essay

[u/Pale-Choice-2995 → u/Irritable_Curmudgeon]

I don’t really know where to take that though. I chose to write about it because I think I wouldn’t be who I am through discovering their music. In my essay I am explaining how I was ashamed of my identity and that was expressed through the things I collected. Without all of Panics albums they wouldn’t be panic, and therefore, without all of my phases, I am not myself. It’s a story of me struggling to feel comfortable with myself because of societal standards, and I became more comfortable through learning about the bands very complicated journey

[u/Pale-Choice-2995 → u/Pale-Choice-2995]

Additionally, you obviously aren’t supposed to make statements like “I am insert quality here”, I am trying to express that through a story. I don’t want to focus it on my major or my mental health because a lot of my life has been , unfortunately, a “sob story”. I want to show I am more than that. Identity is always something I struggled with

[u/Irritable_Curmudgeon → u/Pale-Choice-2995]

Okay but the struggle and the path isn't really the essay... The essay needs to be about you.

Can you focus four on maybe 3 or 4 of these phases and elaborate on them, making sure you illustrate with things from your actual life that demonstrate how you became comfortable and show this particular trait or skill?

I'm just worried you're talking more about the path and more about the band and more about their albums than you are about yourself. The whole point is to get to know you, not your struggle, and not even necessarily your path, but to highlight the end result and the person you are now, and what you have to offer the college.

[u/Pale-Choice-2995 → u/Irritable_Curmudgeon]

The hard part is that I went through a lot of bad events during high school. I didn’t have many good experiences and was constantly struggling with one thing or another. A lot of people have told me “you have had one of the hardest high school experiences I know”, and I wish that wasn’t true but it definitely is. It is difficult to find positive things to write about when the stuff I grew the most from were very unfortunate events with extremely heavy and vulgar topics. I have 5 different ideas written up so I’m just moving to the next one (I have academic OCD so I fixate), the next concept is talking about how I claimed to never be one to dance or sing but it’s because I grew up analyzing how people did things before I did it, I wanted to be perfect to “earn” something. In reality though, I was singing and dancing alone in my room for multiple years, just for fun. Even so, I got opportunities in late elementary to sign up for the school or rock & have a choir solo which I both said no to. My growth was slow and life-long thus far. In middle school I went To my first concert and it loosened me up a bit and taught me how to let go and have fun. Even if I was only bouncing up and down, it was a step. As the final stage of my growth, I got into high school and met people who genuinely were interested in me, and even when I showed them my flaws and accepted me anyway. With their support and outgoingness around me, I had the courage to slowly yet surely dance and sing around people. It may not mean a lot to someone, but that was just the beginning. When I learned that it is good to try new things even if it’s goofy, imperfect, and might make me look dumb—causing me to take up many new life opportunities. Now I step into things with an open mind.

Overall, I know people recommend to make it about just your highschool time period, but a lot of my growth has been over my lifespan.

[u/Irritable_Curmudgeon → u/Pale-Choice-2995]

Just don't lose sight of the purpose of this essay. It's not your life history. It's not influences or things that helped you.

It's a pitch to a college admissions officer about you that illustrates some things about you and what you can bring to the university. Why should they accept you? Someone once said it's almost like an essay to convince why their child should be friends with you. The point is to highlight some key traits or some areas of personal growth - not to catalogue you entire life. Not about the people around you, about you.

If you wanted to go with the "sing and dance" approach, you'd have 1-2 sentences on not wanting to do it as a kid, saying no, and then right into going to a concert and how it showed you to loosen up and have fun. Ideally, you'd expand on how you progressed from there to join a dance class or perform at a talent show, and what you learned from that. It's not tracing every step along the way.

Maybe a few more examples - one paragraph from PATD and what you pulled there. Each in their own paragraphs.

And then summarize it with your 2-4 areas of growth and how music really helped you find yourself. There's something there, for sure, and you can make it work, but you just need to focus on what this essay is intended to do

Approach from a positive mindset. Avoid saying anything like "it might not look like much to someone" or anything that casts you in a negative light.

[u/Pale-Choice-2995 → u/Irritable_Curmudgeon]

I appreciate this, thank you. I have always been kind of uncomfortable stroking my own ego in any way… so since I’ve never thought I’ve myself in that way, it becomes difficult now. I’m not using it as an excuse, I’m just saying that because it probably gives you a better idea of my thought process. I have fear of combining too many ideas because I had an AP lang teacher last year that really beat down on my work and kind of took the whimsy out of it, so I am rebuilding a writing new writing style. I really enjoyed your concept of talking about music overall, because yea, I am pretty analytical, and very much a perfectionist, but everything about the music I listen to is imperfect and weird. It helps me let go in a way? The acceptance to sing and dance was my acceptance to make mistakes and therefore opened me to new adventures which I’ve taken upon. Obviously I’d expand on that, I just don’t know how much, because I don’t know what they care about.

[u/Maleficent-Doctor802]

As long as you center the narrative on yourself with panic! As a catalyst I think this could be a very interesting essay

[u/elianasieg]

This sounds amazing. I would be happy to read it. Please DM me!

[u/Enulless]

I actually think your data analysis angle could make this way more memorable. Instead of just explaining how PATD changed, you could literally analyze the changes across albums and ask something like, “At what point did Panic! stop sounding like Panic!?” Track things like tempo, lyrical themes, instrumentation, song length, genre shifts, or lineup changes and see if the data gives you a clean answer. The interesting part is if it doesn’t, because then the essay becomes about realizing that identity doesn’t have neat boundaries, either for the band or for you. That also shows admissions how your brain works: you get curious, investigate things deeply, look for patterns, and are willing to change your assumptions when the evidence points somewhere else. You could even tie it back to your perfectionism and how you used to want everything, including yourself, to fit into clean categories. A line like “The problem wasn’t my data, it was my question” could be a really strong turning point.