As weird as it sounds, I’m starting to think I was accepted into NYU on the basis of mediocrity.
And by mediocrity, I mean how I wanted to go into a humanities field in a household where success is equated with attaining high-earning STEM positions, which is what my Common App essay was ultimately about. With NYU’s release of regular decision admissions for the class of 2029 around the corner, I’m reminded of that crappy essay I wrote three years ago. It begins, “I was destined to be a scientist. As scientists, my immigrant parents were able to achieve success, although they had nothing but $500 and a dream.”
It’s true. My parents immigrated to the United States from Shanghai, China with only a little money and the desire to start anew. Supported by an education in STEM, they were able to get jobs and settle down to start a family. In doing so, they established a firm foundation upon which their children could grow — and hopefully, would retrace their footsteps to achieve that same level of success.
Enter me: the humanities-loving problem child. As I wrote in my Common App essay, I was fascinated by books and literature from a young age. My mom called me naturally dramatic because of how I would throw fits and start arguments, all with the skill of a playwright. On top of that, I was god-awful at math, and long sessions spent crying over math homework with my dad couldn’t save me. I was simply mediocre in their eyes.
When I wasn’t regretfully trudging through math problems, I was often engaging in some combination of reading, writing or fantasizing about the two. I forced my friends on the playground to make believe that we were in “Percy Jackson,” “Harry Potter” or “Wings of Fire,” and I even took commissions for short stories. In short, I was becoming a writer.
What I didn’t elaborate on in my Common App essay was that as my passion for writing grew, I was also experiencing a combination of well-meaning yet firm parental pressure in an intensely competitive academic setting. This experience was pretty universal for students in my grade, and proved to be particularly formative for those graduating from my central New Jersey high school.
Though it was never said aloud, my peers and I all believed that we had to get into the best BS/MD programs, Ivy League schools and computer science programs if we wanted to be successful, which meant taking an insurmountable amount of AP classes and maintaining a 4.0 GPA.
At the same time, the fact that I’m at NYU and can proudly say that I’m a double major in art history and journalism says something. So does the fact that my parents are now proud of how I’ve not only grown as a person, but as an aspiring art journalist. Over the past two years, I’ve managed to turn dismissive disdain into increasing admiration, and I think my parents are fascinated by how I’m doing something that hasn’t been done in my family before.
Even if the weight of college essays make you believe it, you do not, in fact, have overcome a life-changing obstacle by the age of 15 or 16. While this is undoubtedly true for some, in my case, the obstacle is not only the pressure of parental expectations and traditional academic success, but more recently, rejection — by publications and potential employers — and learning to take it as a means of growth.
Even still, I am by no means as strong as I made myself out to be in that decisive college essay. I still get butthurt by constructive criticism and frustrated when I’m turned down by yet another internship. But here I am at NYU, an accomplishment that perhaps many of us take for granted. I’m here writing for WSN, and have also reported front row at two New York Fashion Week shows for a highbrow arts and culture magazine.
That brings me to one of the only things I liked about my Common App essay. At the end, I wrote that “experiences, if anything, give words their meaning.” It’s true. While I have struggled with my own doubts and the doubts of my parents, I have to give credit to these experiences — because in a world where nothing except the fruits of hard work are guaranteed, my growth, and my work, are not to be taken lightly.
Contact Mia Shou at [email protected]