<p>A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. </p>
<p>I know the prompt says I need to talk about "an experience" indicating that I should concentrate on one event, but I think I could write a much better essay about the culmination of my life.</p>
<p>I'm writing about my diverse life. I'm making sure to mention my Mexican step-grandfather, my paiute step-grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins, my afghani brother, and my panamanian aunt. I'm also making sure to mention my republican step-mother, democrat mother, independent father, and libertarian step-father, and I'm also mentioning the religious diversity in my family: my athiest mother, my agnostic/deist father, my ghost dance paiute family, and my finatically christian step-mother and grandparents. I'm pretty sure that I can convince them that the white, blond haired girl is the most diverse applicant they have ever dreamed of. I also want to discuss that so much diversity in my family made me a unique individual and forced me to choose my own religion and political party (and to an extent my ethnicity) at a young age, which encouraged abstract and complex thought to be brought to the forefront of my life at a time when most kids only still hadn't developed basic ideas about their identity.</p>
<p>So my question is, do you think it will hurt me that I am not following the prompt to a t, even if I write an incredible essay?</p>
<p>Why would you take this risk? Your essay topic is just great, but it doesn't match 100% that topic. Choose the topic of your choice to be completely safe.</p>
<p>Then it is about what your family did, not what you did.</p>
<p>If I could make a suggestion: </p>
<p>Pick a small, diverse subset of your diverse family. "Describe an experience...or an encounter" involving you and that small subset. Make sure that that experience or encounter "illustrates what you would bring to the diversity of a college community" or "demonstrates the importance of diversity to you".</p>
<p>You will not have the space to go into detail about all of those relatives that you mentioned and also reveal something meaningful about yourself. Remember: it is quite possible to have a diverse background and still be utterly uninterested in diversity. It is also quite possible to play the diversity game, to mention all sorts of diversity in one's background, and yet have no true appreciation of, or interest in, diversity generally. Therefore, the diversity of your family proves little, imo, to an admissions officer. </p>
<p>The prompt says "Describe an experience or an encounter"..."that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity of a college community" or "demonstrates the importance of diversity to you" precisely because they want to know whether you have an appreciation of diversity, are open to diversity, can contribute to diversity. Therefore, imo, respond to the prompt.</p>
<p>In an excellent essay that I read, the writer stated that she got a job at a thrift store on the other side of town for the specific purpose of meeting people of different races and of different financial and social situations. This action demonstrated a deep commitment to diversity. This person inconvenienced herself and her family over many months simply for the sake of diversity. The writer might well have had no diversity at all in her family and background, but she nevertheless demonstrated a striking and heartfelt commitment to diversity.</p>
<p>In another essay, an Asian writer wrote of her experience as a four-year member, and eventual leader, of the Black-Hispanic club at her school. Again: a commitment to diversity was demonstrated through noteworthy actions over a period of time.</p>
<p>It is, of course, possible to develop an appreciation of diversity from one's background. But, whatever the source, a true appreciation of diversity develops inside, in feelings, in the soul, which then goes on to guide the actions of the mind and body. It is a matter of the heart, and of commitment demonstrated through actions, not of background.</p>
<p>I have kind of a similar wonder... I'm thinking about writing about growing up in Iowa and developing a different perspective than others for the schools on the coasts I am applying to. But I can't decide if it works or not....</p>
<p>I'm just using my family history as a background. My essay is about how my family history allowed me to develop complex, abstract thoughts and arguments about my personal identity concerning ethnicity, religion, and politics at an age much younger than that of my peers. It is about how my family history allowed me to develop my own diverse ideas rather than clinging to pre-set polarized views. I think I've decided to stay on the safe side by choosing the "topic of your choice" essay rather than the too specific for my needs diversity one.</p>
<p>I would also go with the "topic of your choice" in this case. It couldn't hurt unless your essay is a clear fit for one of the other topics, in which case the (lack of) categorization might raise a few eyebrows - but I think taking such a wide perspective which covers your (somewhat) long-term development as a person deviates considerably from the particular, event-oriented focus of the topic, even if that focus is only implicit.</p>