<p>Jhl I don’t think thats what he meant. Just that unless you have something important to say, just being from another culture isn’t a particularly interesting story and won’t give you much. You can be dull from and bland from Brunei (not saying that you are) or extreeemely interesting, varied and a standout from downtown NYC, two blocks from Columbia.</p>
<p>If you’re from Darfur but lived in a gated community and watched cartoon network over satellite while eating delivered McDonald…well, so what? Experience alone is more interesting than background.</p>
<p>Maybe i was a bit too sensitive.. Yea.. I know coming from where i am is not particular interesting.. But i do have a story to tell in my essay.. I dunno if it will get me in..anyway I’ll just keep my fingers crossed..</p>
<p>to second undisclosed and clear misunderstandings, it depends on the experience, often the experience is helped to become unique/rare and interesting by being outside the US, but being outside the US or from a different culture alone is not enough (unless you’re from darfur, or an afghanistani female who’s from and lived there - columbia being able to say they have a student from darfur who’s lived through parts of the civil war is HUGE). Coming from brunei you will bring a unique perspective to columbia and that is a plus, but if you play the ‘i’m from brunei’ card you need to tie that to a set of experiences that have shaped you and that will enrich campus life.</p>
<p>“Having been in the military” isn’t a particularly interesting story. There are many boring people who join the ranks, and simply by virtue of having visited a foreign country, trained really hard, and/or patrolled a bit, doesn’t mean you’re going to add anything to campus or classroom culture.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if your unusual experiences while in the military were by virtue of being proactive, curious, diligent, etc - and they left a deep impression on you, then you could demonstrate that you’re a deep thinker by talking about (say) (1) the universality of certain facial and hand expressions across cultural barriers, (2) what you’ve learned about negotiating a large bureaucracy, (3) philosophical ramblings on pain-vs-gain or what it’s like to shoot a gun, and so on. You may be able to say a lot that someone who doesn’t have those experiences couldn’t say. But unless you use those experiences to say something interesting and original, it doesn’t matter that you were in the military.</p>
<p>that’s what i mean by, “in and of itself, being from another country isn’t extraordinary”. here in new york we have a lot of foreigners. They tend to drive cabs, run street vendor carts, own delis, bus tables, and do a lot of things that don’t tend to correlate with being a deep and original thinker. They still have the burden of proof just like all the rest of us.</p>
<p>actually, that’s nothing at all like what I meant. Many of us might be able to write a more interesting admissions essay on the subject of tennis than Roger Federer. The key isn’t how much you’ve gotten out of something (although in Federer’s case, his skills would be a very appealing part of his overall profile), it’s how interestingly you can discuss it and whatever insights you drew from it, or what points it can make about your character or personality.</p>
<p>The essay is about those things - character, personality, creativity - rather than just trying to prove that you’re an interesting person by using your background as leverage.</p>
<p>“The essay is about those things - character, personality, creativity - rather than just trying to prove that you’re an interesting person by using your background as leverage.”</p>
<p>Stanford or Columbia is actually more selective (esp towards internationals)? Columbia has a lower admission rate, Stanford with a higher SAT average..</p>