I’m an international student, and I have a somewhat unusual background, which I think is crucial in understanding my personality. However, I am slightly worried about writing an essay about my experiences. I wonder if i’d be too risky, and I’d appreciate your opinion.
Here’s the short story:
My ancestors had been living in this country X (sorry, but I’d rather not use the actual names of the countries here) for ages. However, at one point during the 20th century, they had to move to an underdeveloped country Y.
I was born in Y, and even though I’ve been living here my entire life, I identify myself as “X-ian”.
Now, a few words about Y. Let’s just say it’s not the most thriving country on Earth; lots of people live in poverty, while human rights are being severely violated. At the same time, Y is not the country you can normally see mentioned in the news. Y is a very isolated country, and unless you can speak Y-language, there’s pretty much no way you can get an insight into what’s going on here.
For me and my family, living in Y has been nothing but a constant struggle. There’re very few foreigners living in Y, and most of the time they are not really welcome. The diversity is not welcome here, and belonging to a different culture makes things very difficult.
Now, I hope that you grasped the general idea.
I would like to write my CommonApp essay describing my experience of living in Y, and the way it shaped me. I’m wondering if it’s too risky to write a 650-words essay about it though?
As I said, it’s not a country that attracts a lot of global attention at the moment, and I doubt that many people from western countries are aware of the current situation in Y. It certainly will be a new and unique topic if I choose to write about it, but can I possibly put all the seriousness of the situation in 650 words? I know that adcoms are all nice and well-educated people, who will probably try to fully understand what I’m talking about, and who will respect the difficulties I’ve been through, but won’t I look stupid next to an applicant from some “news-famous” country where a war’s been going on for the last couple years? Such applicants can focus on THEIR experiences and not waste any words trying to explain what’s going on in their country, because people already know perfectly well what’s going on.
So would you attempt writing such an essay?
Do you think it’s an interesting topic? Is it unique? Any recommendations?