Surviving the College Application Process by Lisa Bleich

Author:Lisa Bleich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Kaden’s Checklist

Kaden had strong extracurricular activities and experiential learning; however, his academic record was weak. While he is generally good in math, he fell asleep during the New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment exams and scored below proficient in math. Therefore he had to take remedial math at the same time he took pre-calculus. Kaden was also not performing well in AP government, so he needed to go in for extra help and develop different study skills to bring his grade up. He also needed to start studying for the SATs with a private tutor or class to help boost his academic profile.

Kaden was counseled to continue his political pursuits over the summer to show a depth in this area and to continue playing the violin in the Greater Newark Youth Orchestra and teaching lessons. Kaden’s leadership and initiative would illustrate that he would be able to contribute to a college community.

The next time we met, as our discussion progressed and we reviewed the list of colleges, it became clear that the previous strategy no longer applied. Kaden had come up with a new list of seemingly disparate colleges that did not fit our previous discussions. As I probed deeper into the attraction to these particular schools, it came out that these schools interested Kaden because they paid for transgender operations for their students.

During Kaden’s senior year, several major events occurred: He realized that he was transgender (a boy inside a girl’s body), he got involved in a documentary film about transgender teens and became fascinated by the director and overall process of making a film, and his father was diagnosed with cancer. Because of these life-altering events, Kaden chose to stay at home for his first year of college and attend Union County College, a local community college.

We met again during the fall of his freshman year at UCC with the intention of transferring to a four-year college with a strong film program. The Kaden who greeted me now appeared self-assured and invigorated. He spoke excitedly about his experience working on a transgender teen documentary with a graduate film student at NYU. One of his friends suggested that he audition for a role in the film even though he had never acted before. He found his calling behind the camera through assisting the director of the film. This experience inspired him to create a YouTube video blog about his own experience as a transgender person and changing identity from female to male. The YouTube project took off, garnering thousands of views, and Kaden found his voice as an agent for change.

Based on his positive experience chronicling his gender change, Kaden created a series of local meet-ups for LGBTQ teens run exclusively by teens. He wanted LGBTQ teens to have a safe haven to come and hang out, share their lives, and feel comfortable. This too became extremely popular and Kaden found his calling again as a leader.

Kaden’s Strengths (Revised)

• Grades and test scores improved while at community college

• Had

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