The Challenge
Jenny’s essays were dry and lacked creativity. It took multiple drafts to get her essays to become more descriptive and vibrant.
Though she was very well-rounded in terms of academics and extracurriculars, her focus in science and research, and her desire to pursue medicine, made it hard to distinguish her from other Indian/Asian American applicants.
Possible Approaches
Because Jenny was such a well-rounded student we had difficulty choosing which, among her many, achievements to highlight. We considered writing about her passion for music and highlighting her talent as a varsity athlete, but ultimately debate and science were the two most important activities on her resume. We had to find interesting ways to describe the competitions she had won in both activities.
The Admissionado Approach
We worked to craft two interesting and compelling narratives that showcased Jenny’s personality, creativity, and passion, and how they contributed to her success in academic areas.
1st narrative – We highlighted her scientific achievements, but also her entrepreneurial and innovative side, something that is not always common in students who are very focused on science/medicine. Her story was about how her sick father helped inspire an invention to improve hygiene at hospitals and the hurdles she had to overcome to bring her invention to market.
2nd narrative – She lacked official leadership on her debate team, but we worked to turn her narrative into one about her personal struggle against gender stereotypes in debate, to one of female empowerment in which she found her voice and helped other girls to find theirs.
She wrote about her passion for music and the fulfillment she derives from singing in her smaller supplement essays.
Highlighting these different aspects on her application made her stand out for her creativity, passion and innovative mind against a demographic that tends to perform very strongly in academics and science, but lacks other dimensions of personality and “soft skills” such as creativity.
The Result
Jenny was accepted to University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Columbia, Yale, Georgetown, Emory, Johns Hopkins (with a huge merit scholarship), Boston University Honors College.
She will be attending Yale in the fall.
Personal Shoutout
Jenny is so accomplished and amazing, but also incredibly humble, earnest, and hard-working. She is genuinely passionate about everything she does. I have so much respect and admiration for her, and her ambition and determination to effect change and contribute to society will carry her far in life.