Student story: Admissions essay about a formative experience
About this video
A student describes writing his college essay about visiting a landfill in Cambodia, where his parents are from. Seeing families scavenging made him realise his parents' sacrifices and how fortunate he was to go to college, and he wrote about what he felt most strongly.
You'll be able to
- explain how a single experience can lead to reflection on family and opportunity.
- identify the realisation at the heart of this student's essay.
- explain why writing about what you feel strongly about can make an essay authentic.
Key words
- Formative experience
- An event that helps shape who you are and how you see the world.
- Sacrifice
- Giving up something valuable to help someone else.
- Fortunate
- Lucky to have opportunities or advantages others may not have.
Transcript
- I wrote about our family trip to visit Cambodia, where my parents are from. I talked about visiting the landfill there. At that landfill, there were dozens of families scattered all over the landfill scavenging for pickings and stuff like that so I talked about that.
I talked about how it made me realize my parents sacrificed a lot. It made me realize what it's like in Cambodia and how fortunate I am to be in the position I am where I can go to college. I talked about how they helped me and they inspired me and they gave me all these opportunities.
I talked about what I do at college and how I wanted to make the most of what I was given because it was a gift for me to be able to grow up in America and go to college. I decided, "You know what? "I'm gonna write about what I feel is true and what I feel the most strongly about."
That was it and I guess the colleges liked me because I got every one of them, every one that I had to submit an essay to accepted me for it.
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