Admissions Essay #1

"The soft thumping of my dad's heart provided a small degree of solace as I cried with my head on his chest. I was in fifth
grade. He had just told me that my mom, having been attacked by her boyfriend, was in the hospital. I remember being
surprised with myself, surprised that I would be sad after all she had done. This was the same person who, when I was
eight, threw a drunken party at our house for teens younger than I am now. This was the same person who would
disappear after spending nights at the bar, the person who went to jail for trying to strangle my dad in an inebriated stupor.
She had not been a part of my life for over a year since my dad received sole custody; I thought I had closure, that I was
ready to move on. Yet, hot tears still ran down my cheek as I imagined her swollen face and the bruises on her arms.
"I had always been shy as a kid and the absence of my mom exacerbated this problem as I tried to unhealthily suppress
my insecurities and fill her absence with others' approval. In sixth grade, I constantly sought the attention of a group of
kids who, in turn, bullied me. Consequently, when I switched schools going into seventh grade, I was shy and timid, afraid
to engage with new people. I pictured myself near the bottom of a rigid social hierarchy. The next year, I started to branch
out more, but inside, I remained obsessed with how others perceived me.
"Entering high school, I would spend hours at a time thinking about my insecurity and talking through memories of my
mom with my dad. During this time, I would always remember how I had stared numbly into the ripples of my dad's shirt
as a fifth grader. I could never forget that feeling of helplessness, but with repeated reflection, I began to understand this
moment in a different way. Given her circumstances — raised by an abusive, alcoholic father and a neglectful mother;
involved in several dysfunctional relationships with controlling men; drinking to numb the injustices of life, but then
realizing it was too late to stop — I have no way of knowing if my life would be any different from hers.
"For the first time, I began to understand an idea that has since granted me freedom: I cannot walk in my mom's shoes,
and thus, no one else can truly walk in mine. The way others perceive me is inherently inaccurate, so I do not need to
concern myself with what others think. This realization provided me the freedom to become untethered from the approval
of others, finally at ease with myself.
"I started to open up. Throughout high school, I began talking to others about ideas that fascinated me, like space travel
and philosophy, rather than frantically searching for common ground. I quit football, realizing that I largely participated
for the status it brought me, and joined cross country, because I genuinely enjoy running. I started holding the door open
for my classmates almost every morning, greeting them as they arrived at school, hoping to brighten their day. I became
engaged in my role on student council, which paid off when I was elected student body president. Even then, it wasn't the
role itself that I found meaningful, but the way I could use it to help others. The basis of my friendships shifted from
validation seeking to mutual, genuine respect.
"As I listened to my dad's heartbeat that night, my mind filled with anger and sorrow. However, in hindsight, I am thankful
for the lessons I learned from my mother; the pain I felt was a necessary step in the process of becoming the person I am
today, someone who is unafraid to express himself."

Information and Ideas Questions (49-55)

 Reading Closely: Determining what’s stated or implied in a passage and applying what you’ve learned from it to
a new, similar situation
 Citing Textual Evidence: Deciding which part of a passage best supports either the answer to another question
or a given conclusion
 Determining Central Ideas and Themes: Understanding the main point(s) or theme(s) of a passage
 Summarizing: Recognizing an effective summary of a passage or of a part of a passage
 Understanding Relationships: Establishing connections (such as cause-and-effect, comparison-contrast, and
sequence) between people, events, ideas, and the like in a passage
 Interpreting Words and Phrases in Context: Figuring out the precise meaning of a particular word or phrase as
it’s used in a passage
Rhetoric Questions (57-61)
 Analyzing word choice: Understanding how an author selects words, phrases, and language patterns to
influence meaning, tone, and style
 Analyzing text structure: Describing how an author shapes and organizes a passage and how the parts of the
passage contribute to the whole
 Analyzing point of view: Understanding the point of view or perspective from which a passage is told and how
that point of view or perspective affects the content and style of the passage
 Analyzing purpose: Determining the main rhetorical aim of a passage or a significant part of the passage, such as
a paragraph
 Analyzing arguments: Examining the claims, counterclaims, reasoning, evidence, and stylistic and persuasive
techniques an author uses in an argument

Your Turn as Test Maker

Information and Ideas Questions
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Rhetoric Questions
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 Admissions Essay #2
I was in 9th grade the first time I stumbled upon a copy of Newsweek. What caught my eye was its trademark title: white
type, red highlight, a connotation that stories of great consequence lay beneath. Such bold lettering gave me a moment’s
pause, and I was prompted to leaf through its glossy pages.
To my surprise, I was instantly hooked.
A new world unfolded before me. Biting social commentary. World conflicts that weren’t dumbed-down. Piquant reviews
of best-selling books, controversial exposés of political figures, tantalizing tidbits on pop culture, full-page spreads of
Technicolor photographs.
And the prose was elegant, sharp, mesmerizing. It radiated sophistication and IQ. As I scanned the credentials of the
authors, my only thought was, wow. The articles were written by worldly, ambitious people who were experts in their
fields, people with PhDs and MBAs from world-class institutions, people who could write brilliantly, who got paid to give
their opinions, who walked with a purpose and ran in the direction of their dreams. People I knew- then and there- I’d like
to one day become.
This is what education looks like, I told myself. I was young, I was impressionable. Like a child standing on the outside of a
candy store, nose pressed against the glass, I hungered to be a part of that cerebral adult world. So I read that magazine
from cover to cover. Twice. And with each turn of the page I felt my small-town naiveté break into smaller and smaller
pieces.
I remember that day as an incredibly humbling experience. I had an awkward, self-conscious epiphany: that I actually knew
next to nothing about the world. There I was, cream of the crop of my middle school, fourteen years of ‘smart’ outwitted
by a thin volume of paper. I was used to feeling gifted, to getting gold stickers and good grades, to acing every elementary
examination placed in front of my cocky #2 pencil.
I wasn’t used to feeling like I’d been living in the Dark Ages.
At the same time, however, I struggled with another realization, one that was difficult for me to define. I felt…liberated. I
felt as though I had taken a breath of fresh air and found it to be bracing and delicious, like it was the first breath I’d ever
taken and I’d never known that air was so sweet.
Talk about a paradigm-shift: somehow, reading Newsweek had rekindled my natural intellectual curiosity; it had, briefly,
filled a hole in my soul that I didn’t know existed.
It had also sparked something within me- a hint of defiance, a refusal to accept complacency. One taste of forbidden fruit
and I knew I could never go back.
Although reading a news magazine seemed like a non-event at the time, in retrospect it was one of the defining moments
of my adolescence. That seemingly unextraordinary day set a lot of subsequent days in motion- days when I would push
my limitations, jump a little higher, venture out of my comfort zone and into unfamiliar territory, days when I would fail
over and over again only to succeed when I least expected it, days when I would build my dreams from scratch, watch
them fall down, then build them back up again, and before I knew it the days bled into years and this was my life.
At 14, I’d caught a glimpse of where the bar was set. It always seemed astronomically high…until it became just out of my
grasp.
Sadly, Newsweek Magazine went out of print on January 1, 2013. Odd as it may sound, I’ll always be indebted to an out-
of-print magazine for helping me become the person I am today.

Information and Ideas Questions (49-55)

 Reading Closely: Determining what’s stated or implied in a passage and applying what you’ve learned from it to
a new, similar situation
 Citing Textual Evidence: Deciding which part of a passage best supports either the answer to another question
or a given conclusion
 Determining Central Ideas and Themes: Understanding the main point(s) or theme(s) of a passage
 Summarizing: Recognizing an effective summary of a passage or of a part of a passage
 Understanding Relationships: Establishing connections (such as cause-and-effect, comparison-contrast, and
sequence) between people, events, ideas, and the like in a passage
 Interpreting Words and Phrases in Context: Figuring out the precise meaning of a particular word or phrase as
it’s used in a passage
 Rhetoric Questions (57-61)
 Analyzing word choice: Understanding how an author selects words, phrases, and language patterns to
influence meaning, tone, and style
 Analyzing text structure: Describing how an author shapes and organizes a passage and how the parts of the
passage contribute to the whole
 Analyzing point of view: Understanding the point of view or perspective from which a passage is told and how
that point of view or perspective affects the content and style of the passage
 Analyzing purpose: Determining the main rhetorical aim of a passage or a significant part of the passage, such as
a paragraph
 Analyzing arguments: Examining the claims, counterclaims, reasoning, evidence, and stylistic and persuasive
techniques an author uses in an argument

Your Turn as Test Maker

Information and Ideas Questions
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Rhetoric Questions
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 Admissions Essay #3
In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in
our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with
language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.

In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for
“cashing out demons.” I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my
pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as
sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.

Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a
language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of
Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?

My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, “This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had
taught herself.

When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school:
English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from
the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said,
“That’s enough.”

“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and
patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”

We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh
at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double
consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt
her more to spare mine.

As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my
school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against
ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at
an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who
have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.

In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting
with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is
a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.

Information and Ideas Questions (49-55)

 Reading Closely: Determining what’s stated or implied in a passage and applying what you’ve learned from it to
a new, similar situation
 Citing Textual Evidence: Deciding which part of a passage best supports either the answer to another question
or a given conclusion
 Determining Central Ideas and Themes: Understanding the main point(s) or theme(s) of a passage
 Summarizing: Recognizing an effective summary of a passage or of a part of a passage
 Understanding Relationships: Establishing connections (such as cause-and-effect, comparison-contrast, and
sequence) between people, events, ideas, and the like in a passage
 Interpreting Words and Phrases in Context: Figuring out the precise meaning of a particular word or phrase as
it’s used in a passage
Rhetoric Questions (57-61)
 Analyzing word choice: Understanding how an author selects words, phrases, and language patterns to
influence meaning, tone, and style
 Analyzing text structure: Describing how an author shapes and organizes a passage and how the parts of the
passage contribute to the whole
 Analyzing point of view: Understanding the point of view or perspective from which a passage is told and how
that point of view or perspective affects the content and style of the passage
 Analyzing purpose: Determining the main rhetorical aim of a passage or a significant part of the passage, such as
a paragraph
 Analyzing arguments: Examining the claims, counterclaims, reasoning, evidence, and stylistic and persuasive
techniques an author uses in an argument

Your Turn as Test Maker

Information and Ideas Questions
5) ___________________________________________________________________________________________
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a. _____________________________________________________________________________________
b. _____________________________________________________________________________________
c. _____________________________________________________________________________________
d. _____________________________________________________________________________________
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a. _____________________________________________________________________________________
b. _____________________________________________________________________________________
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Question Type: _______________________________________________________________________________

Rhetoric Questions
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c. _____________________________________________________________________________________
d. _____________________________________________________________________________________
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a. _____________________________________________________________________________________
b. _____________________________________________________________________________________
c. _____________________________________________________________________________________
d. _____________________________________________________________________________________
Question Type: _______________________________________________________________________________