Poker and College Essays

[Popinjay]

Anyone think it's a bad idea to write about playing poker in your college essay?

[Evan]

I do

[La Brujita]

I think it is a pretty bad idea. If the essay gets in the hands of someone who doesn't like gambling your chances of acceptance have gone down.

If you write about how you love to mow the grass there is a much lower chance of it being read by a grass lover who hates grass cutters.

[Tosh]

FWIW I am doing my dissertation next year on game theory and will no doubt bring poker into it a fair bit. Though not about my playing.

[Blarg]

Very funny and good response, Brujita.

[ilya]

I think writing about poker is probably -AV. At the very least it's bound to increase your variance.
You don't at all need to write about how amazing you are. I wrote about missing my grandmother's tasty cooking. And yes, I got in.
Whatever the colleges may say, I think for most of them your grades & scores are more important. The interview also matters, and you'll have to talk about your essay...so whatever topic you choose, make sure it's one you can talk about with enthusiasm and clarity, and without sounding like an [censored].

[Sponger15SB]

Depends what school you're applying to. If you've got a 4.0 and a 1400 and you're applying to some crap school, you could write about how you like to play your penis as a guitar and most likely they won't even read your essay. However if you want to go to a good school I'd stick to some inspirational bullshit as a story.

[Blarg]

If you were talking about a college entrance essay -- it seems people here are thinking so -- I would think about doing something related to charity or community mindedness. Especially if you can make it not tiresome but have a feeling of being committed and excited. Charity and such are HUGE to a lot of people, defining in their minds a whole different and superior class of people, and will make many people have a high opinion of you whether they even like the essay or not. So it's a double whammy in your favor. It's a lot harder to look negatively in any way at your essay when they like or admire you already, and have already set you apart from the pack in their minds. Being a dedicated carebear is very, very +EV. As long as you don't sound too much like you're giving one of those inane "Miss America" speeches about how we should all come together and learn to love wildebeests or something.

[banditbdl]

Terrible idea. What does you playing poker contribute to society? In the eyes of colleges not frickin' much. Furthermore, they could construe it as even taking away from other things you could be doing like studying, participating in campus groups, volunteer work, etcetera. Now we all know there is plenty of time in the day for you to do poker as well as these other things if you put your mind to it, but these are the kind of things they'll be thinking about. Would you write in your essay about how much you love video games?

You would have to have a helluva damn good reason to find a spot for poker to fit into a college entrance essay.

[ThaSaltCracka]

[ QUOTE ]
Depends what school you're applying to. If you've got a 4.0 and a 1400 and you're applying to some crap school, you could write about how you like to play your penis as a guitar and most likely they won't even read your essay. However if you want to go to a good school I'd stick to some inspirational bullshit as a story.

[/ QUOTE ]He is already in college.

If you are writing about poker in general, its not a bad idea, if you are writing about you playing poker, then it would be a bad idea depending on who your teacher is.