My kid is applying for EA and we are struggling with the “Please tell us more about your cultural background and identity in the space below (100 word limit).” writing prompt. Anyone have any suggestions on approaching this? My kid is midwestern white bread in a blended family who was born unto a teenage mom (yup that’s me). He is planning on writing about his bio-dad abandoning him so his step-dad is listed as father in the bio-section in the ‘Optional section’ on Part 2.
Thoughts? Ideas? Should I go all genealogy on them with “I come from the land of France where my decedents worked the guillotine after they were thrown from royalty…” or keep it more current? Send help!! I hate college applications! Back in my day we just filled out a form and had it postmarked by the due date, lol.
Why are you writing it, not him? It seems like he already has a plan of what to write about. MIT wants to hear from your son. If you feel it’s necessary to discuss it with him, let him bounce ideas off of you to find out what part of his background is important to him.
Poor phrasing on my part, sorry. I am not writing anything…only helping come up with ideas.
ETA goodness I know how to type and spell but this keyboard sucks
He doesn’t have a plan on what to write. That’s the problem he’s struggling with. He doesn’t want to write about the dad/step-dad part in this section.
I guess I am hoping for some ideas on the way others have approached this question to hopefully get his mind thinking about ways to answer this. Writers Block for him is a real struggle right now.
If he doesn’t want to get into his dad/step-dad then he could focus on his midwestern white bread cultural identity.
I believe most schools use essay questions to see how well the student can write and express themselves. It’s your son’s chance to share his personality so MIT can get to know him. I think the goal when answering this question should be: if someone didn’t know your son and read his answer, would they feel like they knew who he really was? And even better, would they want to know him?
There are some helpful books out there on college application essays. I found some at our local public library.
Don’t take this prompt to literal, this is not only about ethnicity, race etc. he can pretty much write about anything that makes him “him”. It doesn’t have to be a serious subject or something major.
Years ago I attended an MIT Club of Boston event where the MIT director of admissions talked of parents helping to write their child’s application. I was amazed at the insight they have to detect it.
This should be about how his cultural background effected him. It is not about your family history, it is about how it shaped him into a person he is today .
I don’t think MIT wants an emotional bit about abandonment. This is more about what they see in him that they want and like.
Surely he’s got some group identity and sense of self other than the genealogical aspects. In part, this question is to see how he does think, how he recognizes influences.
Some kids will write, eg, about their communities.
Agree, don’t overthink this. Midwestern and white is a culture, just like any other culture. Let your son write it from his tone of voice and experiences. My oldest son had a similar prompt many years ago and wrote about roaring down country roads in a car at sundown when the fruit trees were in full bud and with bugs hitting the windshield creating a crazy color montage against the sunset.
My older son would probably have written about coming from a family of nerds. There are more computers than there are people in the house.
Younger son would have written yet another funny anecdote that illustrated who he was. He has a real knack for self-deprecating humor.
I think it helps that the point of the application is that you want the admissions officers to like you. They want to think this would be a fun guy to have as a roommate. This would be a thoughtful person to have in class. This guy has an interesting way of looking at the world. (My kid wrote one of his essays about the history of the playground key, and the tug of war between wanting to let kids play on the school playground after hours, to finding parents weren’t being responsible. He was going through neighborhood files and finding that history kept repeating itself because no one remembered what had happened last time. He talked about how this project made him feel like a real historian as he put together information no one had thought about before.)
Thank you everyone for your insights and helpfulness.
@momofthreeboys - he read your comment and immediately came up with exactly what he wants to write about to convey where he comes from.
@mathmom "They want to think this would be a fun guy to have as a roommate. This would be a thoughtful person to have in class. This guy has an interesting way of looking at the world. " This helped him so much. Thank you!
Don't write the essay for him or even do any real editing of it. As another post said, any admission person worth their salt can figure out who wrote it (actually what generation by the phrasing of it). I read my kids essays and provided comments as to whether I liked or disliked the content but not any specific edits.
What that kind of prompt to me means: who are you? who is your family? I wouldn't go back very far in family history unless it somehow directly influenced him. Being white, from the Midwest, conjures up a certain personality. Is he that person or someone else? What does he like to do?
Part 1 is supposed to be relatively straightforward I think. My understanding is that this question is just meant to let people expand on the previous questions about ethnicity since they might not really give a good picture of one’s cultural background. I’m not sure if this is the place to be creative, though it’s probably fine if you are.