I came from a large public high school-- with a student body greater then the undergrad student body of UR. That being said, the college application process wasn't necessarily supported with great magnitude by the school so applications were something students tended work on via their own merit and help of intermediate family.
At the time, I had always dreamed of going to Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. My parents were far less keen on the idea of me going to school in a city like New Orleans (especially after the recent years following Hurricane Katrina). I decided to apply early action and at the time, I still embodied this terrible characteristic of procrastination which I have since fortunately rid from my ways. The application was due at midnight and I still had not had it finished by late evening and I was beyond frustrated. And because I had waited until the last minute, my parents offered almost no assistance (says a lot about my parents expectations, haha!). From this point on, I can recall scrambling together a very confusing essay that I was not proud of. Nevertheless, I was relieved to be done with the application. Long story short: I got deferred early action. My application was then considered for regular decision and I got denied.
As for my other college applications, I used the Common Application. And this time, I allowed ample time to carefully complete every section. Common App gives five prompts for applicants to choose from and of those five, one of them was simply "a topic of your choice". Knowing myself, I knew immediately that was the prompt I needed to choose because I tend to have difficulty expressing myself when strict guidelines are present. That said, another problem within itself was created-- where do I even start? What do I even write about?
As many stressful and agitating weeks flew by (and as my Tulane defference-wound was still healing), I had made virtually no progress on my essay. At some point between, my mom had randomly sent me an e-mail listing the characteristics about me that she found special to her. Putting all the mothery-like things on the list aside, something that struck me was when she listed my curly hair. For those who know me well, my big, brown curly hair has always been a source of inside jokes, laughter, and it has a deep history. It has nicknames, stories, some rather traumatic experiences, and to top it off, it contrasts my older sisters perfectly pin-straite hair.
The moral of the story is that I ended up writing my college admissions essay about how my hair served has a metaphor to describe my progress in high school, my personality, and my uniqueness. I also added the physical changes of my hair when I got very sick during my sophomore year as a way of indirectly explaining my lower grades that year. By the time I was finished, I was actually proud of the final product this time.
A few months later, I found out that I had been admitted to the University of Richmond (a school with similar and overlapping admissions criteria as Tulane University, shall I point out). And as I said earlier, I really feel that properly and clearly explaining a knowledge of my own identity in an essay form had a dramatic impact. I know that this school is, and will continue to become, a crucial influence in the person I grow to become. What if I had never submitted that essay and had been admitted here?
Thinking back to this experience gave me some insight on how to help current high school students as they just now embark on the long process of applying to colleges. I know that the first thing I would do is have a student list everything that they love about themselves or what others love about them; what characteristics do they embody that they're proud of. Simply thinking of a story to share didn't work for me--I really needed to dig deeper, outside the box, and that all started with the list my mom had e-mailed me.
Throwback:
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