Although I'm white and I cannot relate on the level of being racialized or an immigrant, as someone who had a very troubled and dramatic childhood I find this quote relatable. I remember being a...
Your story has to be sad enough to gain sympathy but not so sad that it makes you seem beyond help. Just critical enough to inspire change, but not so much that it actually criticizes systemic structures. Just honest enough to seem real, but not so unfiltered that it creates discomfort.
Although I'm white and I cannot relate on the level of being racialized or an immigrant, as someone who had a very troubled and dramatic childhood I find this quote relatable. I remember being a teenager and there being no shortage of scholarship applications or university applications or even journaling assignments which asked a question that invited one to think about their difficult experiences, and while I understand abstractly the intent of these questions they were genuinely awful for me to contend with. Every time I encountered one I would involuntarily re-tread some terrible experience in my life that was often STILL ongoing in some capacity; in fact, the question itself invited a deep examination of the worst parts of these experiences.
I know now that I have PTSD and was experiencing being triggered, but back then I just rode the spiral down and down and didn't know how to stop it. Now in the thankfully rarer cases where it becomes relevant, I just lie or pick something more relatable that's happened outside of that context. But it took a lot of time and therapy to achieve even occasional neutrality about prompts of that nature. I still think they're ridiculous and uncomfortable, and especially so for a 19-year-old.
I feel like a subcurrent of this critique is the "memeification" of college essays. I guess the admissions process has turned into a bit of a formula with well understood expectations and norms...
I feel like a subcurrent of this critique is the "memeification" of college essays. I guess the admissions process has turned into a bit of a formula with well understood expectations and norms and that lead to everything sounding the same.
As an immigrant and religious/ethnic minority myself I find this entire process deeply annoying and I've never been able to accept the current cultural trend towards personal stories and statements that can only emphasize a racialized Horatio Alger story that distills my identity into primarily being one of victimhood or disadvantage. Ms. Young talks about the noxious impact of having to make the vulnerability "marketable," but I think it goes even beyond this. It basically creates a filter that is put on us by the pressures and cultural biases of admissions readers, that forces us to view our backgrounds as ones of being inherently less good. It puts the reader in the position of being a hero in the narrative, finding this wretched creature that they get to uplift. I imagine that makes an admissions officer feel better than merely identifying people who would be good fits for the institution they're recruiting for.
Although I'm white and I cannot relate on the level of being racialized or an immigrant, as someone who had a very troubled and dramatic childhood I find this quote relatable. I remember being a teenager and there being no shortage of scholarship applications or university applications or even journaling assignments which asked a question that invited one to think about their difficult experiences, and while I understand abstractly the intent of these questions they were genuinely awful for me to contend with. Every time I encountered one I would involuntarily re-tread some terrible experience in my life that was often STILL ongoing in some capacity; in fact, the question itself invited a deep examination of the worst parts of these experiences.
I know now that I have PTSD and was experiencing being triggered, but back then I just rode the spiral down and down and didn't know how to stop it. Now in the thankfully rarer cases where it becomes relevant, I just lie or pick something more relatable that's happened outside of that context. But it took a lot of time and therapy to achieve even occasional neutrality about prompts of that nature. I still think they're ridiculous and uncomfortable, and especially so for a 19-year-old.
I feel like a subcurrent of this critique is the "memeification" of college essays. I guess the admissions process has turned into a bit of a formula with well understood expectations and norms and that lead to everything sounding the same.
As an immigrant and religious/ethnic minority myself I find this entire process deeply annoying and I've never been able to accept the current cultural trend towards personal stories and statements that can only emphasize a racialized Horatio Alger story that distills my identity into primarily being one of victimhood or disadvantage. Ms. Young talks about the noxious impact of having to make the vulnerability "marketable," but I think it goes even beyond this. It basically creates a filter that is put on us by the pressures and cultural biases of admissions readers, that forces us to view our backgrounds as ones of being inherently less good. It puts the reader in the position of being a hero in the narrative, finding this wretched creature that they get to uplift. I imagine that makes an admissions officer feel better than merely identifying people who would be good fits for the institution they're recruiting for.