<p>ok, I'm having trouble with this essay for Michigan. Can anyone help me?</p>
<p>prompt:</p>
<p>"We know that diversity makes us a better university -- better for learning, for teaching, and for conducting research."
(U-M President Mary Sue Coleman) </p>
<p>Share an experience through which you have gained respect for intellectual, social, or cultural differences. Comment on how your personal experiences and achievements would contribute to the diversity of the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>If you’re a minority, write about how enriching the experience is. If you’re not, then write about how horrible you feel for not being one and that you personally take responsibility for slavery, segregation, immigration quotas, and any other race-based atrocity you can think of. :/</p>
<p>Think about a scenario dealing with diversity you’ve been in. I wrote mine about how even though I’m not Latino, I have a spanish last name, so we always get telemarketers calling our house in spanish trying to sell us Spanish Direct-TV.</p>
<p>it doesn’t have to be about racial diversity, you know.</p>
<p>^Exactly. I thought about this one for awhile as well. I found though that the easiest one to write was intellectual diversity. Especially if you come from a non-minority, less diverse family.</p>
<p>One idea I gave my friend (who is a girl) is to talk about the diversity in her closet. idk, get creative, have fun with it.</p>
<p>Well I’m asian and I have only a family of 3 (my parents and I). Any ideas where I can go from there?</p>
<p>I talked about diversity at my school (in my freshman year we hold an international day party) and how I had to choose between two extremely good school, but in the end picked the one with the IB program-thus diversity. </p>
<p>btw, this is from a friend who graduated from UM and his idea of why UM makes people write this essay:</p>
<p>“Here is just a little background off of the top of my head. There’s a reason why diversity is very important to the Michigan culture. Looking at their academic and research departments, they are extremely established in ALL areas ranging from biochemistry to sociology to statistics. Michigan is the jack of all trades. We welcome business-driven leaders, environmental activists, composers, film-makers, and mathematicians to become our faculty and students. The power of this diversity lends itself to developing students with a very well-rounded and LIBERAL education. Do you understand the message they are trying to put out? If you do come to Michigan, you will meet all sorts of people with dissimilar interests. The value of this is important if you want to maximize your experience here.”</p>
<p>Well, in all seriousness, there are a number of angles you could attack this from:
[ul]
[<em>]Racial diversity
[</em>]Cultural diversity
[<em>]Ideological differences
[</em>]Diversity in your school
[<em>]Diversity within your family
[</em>]Political diversity
[li]Economic diversity[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>…and the list goes on. I wrote about a summer I spent in DC and the racial, cultural, and political differences I encountered. I also worked in how my school offers very few languages, and as an Asian-American, I felt it necessary to take language and cultural courses outside of school to broaden my horizons. A friend of mine wrote about the fact that School of Choice integrated mentally challenged children into the classroom and showed him the value of diversity. </p>
<p>But really, I’d recommend you just be pragmatic. U of M has a racial diversity fetish. If you can work poverty in there, too, all the better. It’s not UChicago in terms of essay creativity; U of M just wants to make sure you’re their “ideal student.” Give them what they want to hear.</p>
<p>so they wanna hear more about racial diversity?</p>
<p>I got in and I wrote about being a conservative in the most liberal place on earth (San Francisco). I think admissions would like to see students recognize that diversity is more than skin color. Be creative and avoid writing about racial diversity unless your ethnicity/culture makes you unique.</p>
<p>would anyone mind PMing me their essay? I will not plagarize it, because the admissions office will notice that there’s 2 identical essays. I just an idea of how to start this.</p>
<p>^I don’t that would be too wise for you to be denied and perhaps the other sender’s admission to be rescinded. </p>
<p>Remember don’t overthink this prompt. Its only 250 words so you don’t have to write a book here. If you’re stumped on racial diversity then skip that topic and focus on something else. Think of any situation you’ve had where you’ve been put in a different position. This can be anything really even a difference in thinking/reasoning between you and other students in a particular class. Talk about what you learned from it even if you have to stretch it a little. Good luck and email me if you have any questions.</p>
<p>What you could also try is to talk about racial diversity as a whole. Not just a specific race. It could make your essay a little different than most of the racial diversity essays.</p>
<p>“would anyone mind PMing me their essay? I will not plagarize it…”</p>
<p>Yeah, right. You’ve received plenty of advice already. They have essays for a reason, and if you can’t think of anything to say, that’s your problem–just like having low grades or low test scores. You’re not even trying. It’s not like you’re saying, “Here’s an essay I wrote. Can anyone help me out?” You are just flat-out copying.</p>
<p>No one is going to stick their neck out for you here.</p>