Write Your Way In by Rachel Toor

Author:Rachel Toor [Toor, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-226-38392-7
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-06-14T04:00:00+00:00

Grandmas on the Rez

One summer I got to teach a course on the personal essay to Upward Bound students from central Washington. Upward Bound, a federally funded program, helps high school students from low-income families—and from families where neither parent holds a bachelor’s degree—get to college.

I brought my dog, Helen, to class, and each day we sat outside for lunch and the kids told me what it was like to be them. Many lived on reservations and were either Native American or the children of Hispanic farmworkers. This group comprised some of the most motivated—and fun—teens I’ve ever met. They loved music and sports, their pets and their families. They made me laugh, made me think, and paid lots of attention to Helen, who adored them.

These new friends had, I knew, plenty of drama in their lives. They mentioned family members who had died, parents who left them, older sisters who dropped out of high school because they got pregnant, and uncles sent to jail. They didn’t mind talking about their struggles.

When it came to working on their application essays, however, my students—whose lives were hard by any measure—refused to recount what they called sob stories. They wanted to write about baseball and their grandmas. That, I told them, was a mistake.

The fact is, these smart, high-achieving students are what many schools are looking for. A key part of a university’s mission—especially public schools—is to be inclusive. Most colleges and universities want a diverse and representative student population. Their admissions staff pays attention to the profiles of the high schools from which applicants come. They get census data on the socioeconomic conditions of their communities. They look at family size and income. Does fewer than half the graduating class go on to university? Is the nearest shopping mall three hours away? First-generation college students face different challenges from those whose family names are chiseled onto campus buildings. These facts make a difference in terms of how applications are read.

Colleges want wealthy kids whose families can pay full tuition and fatten their endowments with big donations, and they also want to provide access for those who have been less fortunate. I knew my Upward Bound students would be appealing applicants, but they were reluctant to write about the issues that would show how much they’d had to overcome to get to where they were. These were normal, happy kids, and they didn’t see why they should mention their hardships.

Here’s the thing. Being a normal, happy kid who loves where he lives, plays music and baseball, and misses his grandma is wonderful. But it won’t help the admissions folks who want to lobby to admit you. Your job is to give them ammunition to fight on your behalf, to show how you will contribute to the campus, even if it means writing about “family drama.” Help them make the argument. I tried to teach my students both/and. You love baseball, and your family can’t afford a new mitt. Your uncle is your role model, and he made mistakes that landed him in prison.

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