Narratives of suffering overcome: a note about personal essays and applications
It's been a decade since California did away with affirmative action by passing Proposition 209. Race can no longer be considered as a factor in admissions to public universities, a change that seems to have led to declining black and Latino enrollment at the most prestigious schools (Berkeley and UCLA). What the end of affirmative action has meant, of course, is a huge rise in the significance of the personal essay. While a student's ethnicity is no longer automatically factored into an admissions decision, a student is free to mention their racial background in their essay. And judging from the large number of essays I see (I am often asked to help craft admissions essays), an exceptional number of my students do just that. The hope, apparently, is to make a legal, oblique appeal to "diversity."
This is not a post about the wisdom or merits of affirmative action. But count me among those who has always considered class to be as important as race; I'm a fourth-generation Cal grad from an educated, prosperous family. I'm also white. Obviously, I didn't need or deserve any affirmative action from the state; my culture and my class had already bequeathed to me more than I deserved. But I went to school with a kid whose parents were Spanish -- pure Castillian -- and wealthy as could be. He shamelessly (and accurately) checked the"Hispanic" box back in the affirmative action days; I also went to school with poor whites from the Central Valley. Descendants of"Okies" and"Arkies", they shared my skin color but not much else. Race is often linked to class, but not inextricably.
In any event, I digress. My point is that far too many of my students insist on writing essays that I can only describe as"narratives of suffering." About half of all the essays I see are blatant appeals for sympathy, usually based on a constellation of socio-economic, racial, and historical factors. Some of these essays are poorly written, but many are actually quite good. They all follow the same game plan: tell the reader about all the obstacles you've overcome. If your parents are immigrants, mention it. If one of your parents drinks, or is in prison, don't hide it -- wallow in it! If you moved around a lot, if you grew up surrounded by drugs or violence --share, share, share! It's the modern version of the apocryphal story about"walking fourteen miles every day to school, in the snow, uphill both ways." It's shameless, it's vulgar, it's repetitive, it's tiresome,and it seems to work.
I've been in the teaching game long enough to notice that these"narratives of suffering endured and transcended" have gotten much more common in recent years. I did notice a sharp uptick after the end of affirmative action in 1996, but it would be wrong to suggest that only ethnic minority students employ this technique today. Even the relatively small number of my students who come from what might be thought of as"privileged" backgrounds (white, middle-class families where college education is a multi-generational norm) have fallen prey to the seductions of competing in the"suffering Olympics." If one's family wasn't disadvantaged economically, perhaps an inspiring tale of battling anorexia will suffice. (Indeed, the"let me tell you all about how I overcame my eating disorder strategy is one I've now seen three times in the last few years. It suggests a trend.)
I can't remember much about what I wrote in my college essays when I was a high school senior twenty-two years ago. (I applied to just two schools: Cal and Vassar.) I think I wrote mostly about my love of history. They weren't very interesting essays, but I remember being told that the point was to convince an admissions committee that I could write well and that I had a certain amount of intellectual ambition. And though I was hardly underprivileged, I was a chubby, clumsy, unpopular teen who grew up as a child of divorce. By the time I was a senior in high school, my problems with alcohol and depression were already emerging. I am sure that had I wanted to, I could have crafted a serviceable sob story, demonstrating both my facility with the English language and my capacity to transcend my own special and important misfortunes.
So, my beloved students, I'll be happy to read your essays before you pop them in the mail this Thursday. I want you to do well, and I hope you get in to the school of your choice. Write whatever you (and your counselor, who probably knows the admissions committees better than I) think best. But if you want my two cents, talk about your accomplishments, your goals, and your dreams outside of the context of your own narrative of disadvantage and oppression. I'm all for sharing stories, mind you! But when appealing for admission to a selective university, consider that constructing a narrative that is obviously designed to elicit sympathy is, well, pretty poor show.