One book I’ve read says that colleges first see you as a list of descriptors, including your gender, race, geography, parent education status (and legacy), and income level. I guess that would mean I’m:
-Female
-White (both immigrated from Romania)
-Midwestern
-No legacy
-Parents have both been to college
-Low income
Super appealing, right? (sarcasm implied) The academics, extracurriculars, essays, etc. come after these factors and they are what an applicant can change about how they are viewed by a university. During the course of this blog, I’ll try to describe my struggles and (hopefully) my successes in crafting the perfect application and choosing the right colleges.
We’ll start with today (what else?), July 2nd, the middle of the summer between my junior and senior year. I began my essay for the CommonApp, which just released its questions for the 2015-16 school year. You can check them out here. For my essay, I’ve decided to tackle the first question, which reads:
- Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
Really, you could write one essay and tweak it slightly to fit any other essay question on the CommonApp. I know I will recycle my CommonApp essay for another application I have begun to fill out for the Questbridge National College Match, a great scholarship providing four-year full-rides to its finalists. I started the essay late at night, and this blog even later. Welcome to my life.
By the way, because I live in the Midwest, I created the post late on July 2nd, although WordPress seems to think it’s July 3rd. Just to clarify.
The Ivies And Me 