export_ofoct.com
[00:00.42] When I was ten, my family and I packed up our entire lives into large suitcases and dragged them across the Pacific to a foreign land called Canada.
[00:09.98] I was put in a school where I was the only Asian kid in my grade, and I got teased for my broken English, Asian features, and funny-smelling ethnic lunches.
[00:19.28] But don’t feel bad.
[00:20.61] Through the magical healing powers of extracurricular activities and pure perseverance, I stand before you today a new woman— healthy, healed, and extremely employable.
[00:33.89] This is a story that I've told in academic essays, job interviews, and even in the very application that got me into this fine university.
[00:42.92] It's also a story that, despite all of its truth, I've come to hate.
[00:48.50] It’s one that continues to be regurgitated by immigrant kids all across the country, to be served on a silver platter to prestigious universities who chew these stories and spit out acceptance letters in return.
[01:01.52] Instead of a difficult immigration experience, it might be the death of a loved one, a chronic illness, or a racist encounter.
[01:09.22] But what remains constant is the moral.
[01:12.40] A bad thing happened to me, but it made me a good person.
[01:16.39] This is part of a larger phenomenon: overwhelming pressure being put on high school students to write about their deepest traumas in their college applications, with the hopes that they seem resilient and interesting enough to be given a spot.
[01:30.47] These are not only bad metrics by which to evaluate applicants, but also incredibly harmful to the storyteller themselves.
[01:37.90] Why do students choose to tell these stories in the first place? The evidence for it can be found in forums like Reddit, admissions blogs, and personal anecdotes.
[01:47.47] Take this Reddit thread where the user says, “I think the more involved and engrossed I get with college admissions processes, I become worse of a person.”
[01:56.23] There’s also pressure that’s being amplified by admissions counselors themselves.
[02:00.22] Take this tip from the MIT admissions blog, where the author compares two different introductions for a potential essay.
[02:06.59] The first one reads, “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a love affair with books.
[02:10.84] Since I was 11, I’ve wanted to be a librarian.” The second reads, “When I was 11, my great Aunt Gretchen passed away and left me a library of about 5,000 books.
[02:21.73] Since then, I’ve wanted to become a librarian.” The author notes that the second introduction leaves a much better impression.
[02:31.29] Confessions from admissions officers themselves can also be telling.
[02:33.42] Aya Waller-Bey, a former admissions officer from Georgetown University, said in a Forbes article that “Within months on the job, I saw how the personal statements of Black and other racially minoritized students differed from those of white applicants.
[02:46.70] Black students highlighted resilience through stories of survival, while their counterparts wrote essays about service abroad and sporting championships.
[02:55.20] Black students shared their pain.
[02:56.79] White students shared their passions.”
[02:59.72] I remember feeling this way when I was applying to universities.
[03:04.50] Like I had no other choice, no other experiences worthy of mentioning.
[03:07.68] And no other merit beyond the fact that I had thrived despite what I had gone through.
[03:13.26] Writing about a difficult experience is, as you may have guessed, difficult.
[03:18.31] For many students the college essay is the first time that they’re discussing these traumatic experiences.
[03:24.69] Confessing to a faceless stranger who gets to make the most consequential decision of their adolescent life imposes an incredibly heavy psychological burden.
[03:33.98] The trauma essay makes one assumption that is extremely problematic and untrue: that the writer is not only far removed from whatever happened to them, but also benefited from it in the form of valuable character development.
[03:48.06] But the inconvenient truth about trauma is that it’s not always a learning opportunity through which you can gain more confidence or develop better time management skills.
[03:57.36] If we’re writing to prove to an admissions officer that we are worthy of a decent education, then it becomes necessary to sanitize our pain to make it marketable and strategic.
[04:08.25] The protagonist overcomes whatever struggle they’re facing by the end of the 500 word count, instilling the reader with a sense that, despite our deeply unequal society, it is possible to rise through the ranks and overcome all the isms.
[04:21.79] This, of course, is not the reality of our world today.
[04:24.98] This is a problem that goes much deeper than individual universities.
[04:28.44] But there are still things that universities can do to make things better.
[04:32.42] If they don't want to reward trauma storytelling just for the sake of it, they should be more forthcoming about this expectation.
[04:39.06] They could also restructure their prompts to avoid putting pressure on students to talk about hardships, and instead ask students about their goals for the future and their academic interests.
[04:49.15] Secondly, admissions counselors should be trauma-informed and trained in working with BIPOC folk.
[04:54.46] I can't help but wonder, what would I have written about if I got the chance to apply to UBC again?
[04:59.78] Maybe I would have written about how I overcame my fear of public speaking and became comfortable with being the loudest voice in the room.
[05:08.81] Or I could have written about watching trashy reality television is what first sparked my interest in political science.
[05:14.92] Or maybe I still would have written about my immigrant story.
[05:18.11] But I would have done it on my own terms.
[05:20.76] This is the kind of ownership that I wish for everyone to have over their story.
[05:25.81] And now it's up for universities to decide whether they get to tell it.
