- Deceased family members - parents (those are the hardest to read, and sadly, there's a lot), grandparents, siblings (also really hard), best friends, and some pets as well
- On a similar note, sick family members. Lots of cancer and a smattering of weird diseases I've never even heard of. I end up reading a lot of Wikipedia articles and Google imaging things - I wouldn't recommend the latter; we find some gross pictures.
- Vacations that changed their world - who knew a family vacation to a villa in the Italian countryside or a posh resort in Caribbean could change someone's whole entire existence so much?! To give them credit, there are a lot of decent vacation stories, lots of service trips too!
- Way, way, way too many Eagle Scout essays. Just about every kid who wants to be an Engineer was an Eagle Scout - or ran cross country, often both! Only one applicant wrote about how much he hated Eagle Scouts. I give him credit for being honest and for keeping me awake. Kudos.
- Interestingly, I've read more essays on Catcher in the Rye than any other book. Kids love Holden Caulfield for some reason. Personally, I hated it. I think I read the sparknotes. And I'd like to sparknote their admission essay.
- The worst are when people just submit some random paper they had to write for a class. I don't care about some random book you read, or some silly research you did on WWII. It doesn't say much about you, and after all, you are the one trying to get into college, not Hitler.
Those are probably the most used topics for an essay. Every once in a while though, one comes along, out of the blue, and it gets you thinking. I really like looking at the GIANT stack of files on my desk and believing that one of these manila folders is going to contain the next great story. Here's some of the more interesting ones:
- One student from Africa who watched both his parents get murdered and then was abducted into slavery and injected with heroin. The kids become addicted and become dependent, therefore, don't run away. This kid, somehow, ended up in the US, and is all well. God bless him, that's about all I can say!
- One girl made a list of the 25 things you wouldn't learn about her by looking at her Facebook. I gave her points for creativity.
- One male student was sexually assaulted by another male on his athletic team. The coach, principal, and his parents wouldn't believe him - causing him to slip into a deep depression.
- One kid had no father figure so he joined a gang and got into some bad stuff. Scary.
- Sadly, more than a couple of students wrote about their parents beating the pulp out of them. Those always break my heart. One kid was locked in a closet by his step dad and forced to urinate all over himself. Makes me cringe.
My all time favorite though - Drum roll please?! This one young lady who wrote her essay about losing her virginity. It was quite graphic, a little vulgar, and had way too many details. She thought she got pregnant. But "by the grace of God", she found her way to the Plan B website and everything was all set.....T.M.I?!? This is your admission essay!!
A close second goes to the young man who wrote about his relationship with his very large athletic cup, or "Cupsie" as he calls it. At first we thought he was bragging about how large everything was - until he described it as a "large umbrella covering a small ant". Word for word, people. You can't make this stuff up. What ever happened to making yourself look good in your essay? I didn't have the pleasure of finding this essay, but the whole office read it...at least once.
I'd say in the past 4 months, I've read over well over 2,000 essays (wow, that seems really high - I did the math 4 times though, promise!). Some are really long, I think I had a 6 page one (and no, I didn't read the whole thing) and some are just a tad more than a paragraph. Some are very carefully written and others look like the person scribbled it right into the box on the form, never letting another person proof-read it or hear it. Please, take more than 3 minutes to write your essay...
It breaks my heart to deny applicants though - even the kids with D's and F's or terrible SAT scores. I've cried, I'll admit it. I've fought for students, searching for any loophole I could. More times than I'd like to admit to, I've apologized aloud to the file in front of me belonging to a student who didn't get admitted. As if the student could hear me or it makes less of the enemy in their eyes. (I have also congratulated files and spent a moment daydreaming up the next scenario - the kids gets their letter, yells, tears of joy, runs to their parent, talks about it at dinner, puts it on Facebook...ya know, the usual) I often joke to my friends and colleagues that if I could, I'd open my very own university, just of kids who need someone to give them a chance. It would be chock full of sob stories, low incomes, and first generation college students. Ones with disabilities and rough childhoods, abuse, eating disorders, and death, but all of them would be students who want nothing else but to learn and grow. At U-, I wish we could just take people based on their heart and their character. How much can a standardized test actually tell you. Doesn't how badly you want it and how hard you are willing to work to get it count?
Maybe it's because I am a first generation student who had parents who pushed me daily to score higher and study harder to make more of myself than they had. For that, I am eternally grateful. Getting me to do math homework before playing outside was a battle somedays, and not every first generation kid is so lucky to have that undying support. Or maybe I'm just a gullible sap or a middle-class white girl with too much privilege and guilt for my own good. I just want everyone to have a chance. In putting down those "deny" files, I have to remind myself, these kids will go else where. They want college and someone, somewhere else will want them. They'll be okay. And so I move on.
If nothing else, I've learned a bit, improved my vocabulary (it makes you feel really stupid when you have to look up words in the dictionary), and overall, gained some faith in humanity and our future. An impressive amount of students do community service and Best Buddies seems to be a popular organization to join. Quite a few young feminists and people actively fighting for equal rights of every gender, race, and sexuality. More students than I expected seem to be breaking stereotypes - chess club and football captain? Cheerleader and founder of SADD? Awesome, just awsome. Maybe I watch too much TV or am jaded by some morons I've met along the way, but reading these essays gives me some hope for our society.
Best wishes, applicants.
Someone's rooting for you on the inside of the brick fortress, don't worry.
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