The essay that is attached below is my response to the question that the college board threw at me during my senior year in high school. The question was something like this: “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.” There were other prompts that I could have chosen, but this particular prompt intrigued me.

Guess how much time it took for me to write this 560 word essay? After completely altering the main theme of the essay five times and drafting it thirteen times, it took me three whole seasons to type up this essay. It took me such a long time because I knew what was at stake. This two page essay was going to determine where I would be for the next four years of my college life.

On a hot summer day, being burdened by this thought, I began to write my college admission essay. I remember that my first draft was about some Korean proverb that I thought was clever to incorporate. However, my English teacher, Mr. Delsegño (Mr. D) disagreed. Trying not to hurt my feelings, he said something along the line of my analogy being too complicated and how it did not really represent who I was; the bottom line was that my essay was boring to read. Though I did not completely understand what he was trying to say at the time, having faith on him, I started working on my second essay. When I brought my second essay to Mr. D, he gave me similar comments. This became a routine of ours. I wrote an essay, brought it to him, he said it’s missing something, and I wrote a new one.

When he finally said yes to my fifth essay, leaves started to fall. We started to work on this essay together, and he helped me to develop my idea. This process was very precious to me. At the time, since English was my second language, grammar was my source of insecurity. Knowing this fear of mine, he constantly encouraged while training me to become a better writer. Although this time was precious to me, it was not necessarily easy. Mr. D is not the type of teacher who spoon-feeds you the answer. He will tell me that a sentence does not make sense and it was my job to somehow figure out what he meant by that and fix it by the next meeting. After each subsequent meeting, as my essay became more coherent and meaningful, I felt more confident about writing.

By the time Mr. D has given me a high-five for finalizing the essay, the streets were covered with snow. When he gave me that high-five, I felt so accomplished. I would be lying if I said that it did not matter at all, but at that point college’s opinion on my essay did not matter as much. I have tried my best on this essay, so I was ready to gladly accept any results. Thankfully, the results were fruitful as well: I was admitted to the CUNY Macaulay Honors Program.

I wrote this essay about two years ago, and my ideas on the essay remains the same. I still believe that “true happiness does not stem from living up to the plastered molds of others’, but rather, it comes from within. Happiness is built in the pursuit of selfhood and in the unexpected conversations with titans like Solomon.” I would not go too far to say that I have mastered the art of selfhood, but I am confident to say that I have definitely matured and grown in the past two years.

Common Application Essay:

My older brother once told me, “You have what I do not have. You are creative, sympathetic, and sincere.” As an eight-year-old so occupied with chasing after my brother’s success, I whimsically shouldered his comment as a mere platitude.

Though I ignored his compliment and many more, the constant comparison of my brother and me would foreshadow the next ten years of my life. Relatives and eventual teachers used his success as a metric against my own, “You should at least be able to score as high as your brother on these tests. If you just follow in his footsteps, you will end up in a good place.” The constant comparison created a void in my own self determination, and riddled my identity with a lack of confidence. I knew that people were hiding their callous criticisms; my grandparents frequently cloaked disappointment with encouragement, “You may catch up to your brother soon,” though I soon began to recognize the insincerity of such comments. Rather than championing my successes, my grandparents compared my achievements to the mold and academic achievements of my brother – expecting me to fit that mold. The amounting pressure coaxed me to walk more and more in his shadow.

This habit of yearning to be like my brother haunted me even after my family immigrated to the Unites States: a new land with a new start. The result on the surface was fruitful: I got into a specialized high school and earned test scores similar to my brother’s. After ten years of trying to be like him, I finally measured up to the comparisons, but the bliss did not last. The moment I realized that my scores were lower than some of my peers’, I reverted to the comparison-obsessed eight-year-old, who could only establish self-identity in the context of others. This psychology continued well into high school, until I volunteered at the Milal Camp, a Christian retreat for people with disabilities.

Without having any prior knowledge of the camp, I assumed that it would be a camp full of people with a sense of inferiority, albeit different from my own. At the camp, my responsibility was to help a cerebral palsy patient, Solomon. Throughout the camp however some things that caught my eye were the happiness and liveliness that I saw in Solomon. I had the privilege of talking to him every night. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, I asked how he was always so happy, when the intended question was, “How are you so happy when you do not have what I have?” He slurred few words that I could not fully understand, but I interpreted his answer to be something like this: “I am happy because I am me!”

Months later, I understood Solomon’s wise maxim: self-gratitude grants self-consciousness. It all started to make sense: the void in my heart, the comparison-complex, and the shadow-chasing. They all resulted from the maniacal pursuit of my brother’s achievements. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the compliments.

After the Milal Camp and a bit of introspection, I was able to change my outlook on happiness. I realized that true happiness does not stem from living up to the plastered molds of others’, but rather, it comes from within. Happiness is built in the pursuit of selfhood and in the unexpected conversations with titans like Solomon.

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