d23 is applying for a summer program, and was asking what i thought about the adversity essay prompt.
of course she’ll tell the truth. i think she thinks she feels blessed that things have been smooth. (ok; mean girl drama one semester)
but i’m curious on this. does it really matter if a kid has not had adversity to overcome? how can a kid prove she is inherently strong or resilient? or does she need to?
I read an article today in the NY Post about kids lying on their college essays about sob stories because they have had no real trauma or obstacles to overcome.
I watched a teen movie on Netflix with my D (“The Perfect Date”) where a boy was trying to get into Yale and comes to the realization that if he felt he needed to lie to get accepted it was not the right college for him. Nice message for high school kids.
Not sure what the exact prompt was, but often adversity type questions have to do with a student’s ability to adapt to challenges or changed circumstance. Schools are not looking only for kids that faced traumatic life altering events.
I might use it as an opportunity to say something along the lines of, “I’m fortunate to say that I’ve never experienced any adversity worth mentioning, but I realize that others have and I’m sensitive to their situations (and in many cases, in awe of their ability to persevere), and I go out of my way to help such less fortunate people. For example, here are some ways I’ve helped them ____________________.”
Something outside the box and different and refreshing?? Set your kid apart??
Maybe its not that she has not had any; its just that she doesn’t identify events as adversity? I mean really, she lived through Covid at the very least. A lot of adverse experiences are how you look at them. For instance, for my sister, my grandma dying was a horrible sad life changing event. For me, my grandma dying was a relief, because she was no longer in pain and it lifted the burden of caring for her off my mom. Maybe she picks a smaller type event and gives an explanation about that?
DD didn’t end up applying to the school, but one we looked at had an essay like that. She too hasn’t had any really big things happen (some mean girl drama). If she had done it, I was thinking of suggesting that she write about when she went to work at camp for a summer (partly to escape the girl drama) and by the first weekend was super homesick and regretting her decision, but she stuck it out and had an amazing time. Maybe she has something smaller like that?
It infuriates me that this is what “holistic” admissions has come to, assuming one isn’t on the preferred admissions track (recruited athlete, donor child, URM, maybe legacy). There are many extraordinary applicants who grew up in healthy, prosperous, peaceful, 2-parent households, where no one was seriously ill, who’ve had no serious adversity - and they know how lucky they’ve been. There are applicants who were absolutely devastated by something that others might consider trivial, like not making the cheer leading squad, who then found their niche in the theater department. There are applicants who lost loved ones to terrible illnesses, or grew up with a mentally ill parent or sibling, and just took it all in stride, because of the overall atmosphere of the household, and don’t think of themselves as having dealt with any more adversity than anyone else.
All these applicants’ experiences are equally valid, and in my opinion, equally irrelevant. What should matter is the record that they’ve amassed - grades, scores, awards, creative work, etc. This is why I think that the “adversity” essay should be only one optional choice among a number of essay choices, including “a topic of your own choosing”.
Do you really think that the kid who has had to overcome true adversities (household drug addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, serious physical illness, domestic violence, neighborhood violence, a criminal family member who winds up incarcerated, grinding poverty and the humiliation of homelessness, the death of a nuclear family member) really wants to write about it? This is the stuff of lurid family drama memoirs written in middle age, not fodder for college applications. Is it trite to write about overcoming the adversity of getting placed in the horrible teacher’s section, while half your schoolmates got the wonderful teacher, and yet managing to teach yourself the material, get a high AP score, and somehow find something of value in what that horrible teacher had to offer? Or of getting dropped by the popular kids, and learning to find value in friendships with the less popular crowd?
Sure, any applicant can write well, could write a good essay about overcoming the adversity of having missed out on the last chocolate Dixie cup ice cream, and having had to make do with a vanilla one. (I’d love to submit a sham application with a full page essay about having had the resilience to overcome THAT experience!) Honestly, if I had been faced with that as a mandatory essay (and I grew up in a household that would have been worth a book and movie deal in the lurid family drama genre), I would have been so offended by the question’s intrusiveness that I probably would have written an essay about what a crappy, inappropriate question it was, if I hadn’t simply tossed that application in the trash can.
So if your child is faced with a mandatory adversity essay, I’d tell them to interpret it however they like, and just make sure that the essay is well-written, in their own voice, and tells the admissions committee something that will make them want to admit your child, even if it’s just that they learned the joy of vanilla Dixie cups that day.
This is actually a great question for someone that really doesn’t have adversity. If fact, you might be missing the point of the essay. You want to show the school that you can handle adversity that many students will face in college. They don’t want to hear about doing bad on an exam or not playing well in a sport. They want to know how your going to fit on their campus /school when adversity comes your way. In other words, spin this if you have to. Don’t need a traumatic event to answer this question. But how you answer the question does matter. Sometimes thinking out of the box is the best way to approach this. There are many ways to approach this. Just have your child write down some ideas and see which flourish. Don’t over think it.
Adversity does include ageism.
Has your child ever wanted to attend an event that was limited by age? How did she deal with that?
Has your child ever experienced driving and helping your parents or the elderly noting how obstacles, like age, affect them?
How has the Black Lives Matter Movement directly affected her? It has been plastered all over media.
Has she noticed bullying at her campus? Through media manipulation? Was there a student she has seen ostracized for their views?
There are various takes on adversity. She can find a lot when she really thinks about it.
What type of summer program is it?
Are there any other prompts? Is the adversity one required?