A few topics I’ve heard of are:

1.What’s your favorite word and describe why is it your favorite?

2. Describe a significant experience that has influenced your beliefs, your view of the world, or any aspect of your life.

3. If you’ve lived , or traveled internationally, describe the cross-cultural experience and how it’s influenced your view of the world

4. Explore an issue of importance to you: this could be local, nationally, or global.

5. Indicate a person who has had significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

6. Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

I don’t think the college essay defines a student at all, but that doesn’t mean he or she shouldn’t put much effort into it. Always check grammar with spell check AND have other people look it over multiple times–with my essays, I have about 3 drafts of each.

The themes may depend on the application requests, like someone else pointed out, some colleges require you to chose from different topics, others let you chose.

The essay I wrote for the college I am now attending was focused on how I tutored a little boy with special needs and how he showed me to appreciate the little things in life.

Here are some resources on college essays:

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/apply/essay-skills/index.html

http://www.quintcareers.com/college_application_essay.html

Good luck!

If you don’t know what topics you can write about, look on the application and pick one. Some allow you to write about whatever you want to, which at times can be very hard, choosing a topic and all. And the essay can be a big deal, because it’s one of the few indications of you as a person.

So, whatever you write, here are some tips I’ve gotten:

-keep it focused on you (the college wants to get to know who YOU are)

-don’t use cliched themes, like “practice makes perfect”, etc (if you do, make sure to re-word it so that the admissions officers feel like it’s a “fresh” essay)

-use show don’t tell, but don’t overuse it and bore people

-if you want to get a point across, you can embellish a little, but don’t go making things up completely, because it won’t come from the heart (yes i know that sounded really cheesy, but it’s true)

Hope that helps! And good luck with your essay!