College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010

Fatiman Kausar Asghar
The applicants

Fatimah was a member of varsity crew during her junior and senior year of high school, and was part of junior varsity crew when she was a sophomore and freshman. She also spent time volunteering with such organizations as The Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, Woman to Woman, and the National Honors Society, of which she was treasurer. In addition, she interned at the Summerbridge Cambridge division of Breakthrough Collaborative, a non-profit program designed to aid students academically by having college and high school students design and teach classes that will appeal to their interests. She was also involved with the Youth Involvement Subcommitte, a program that advocated lowering the voting age in local elections to 17.

Stats

SAT: 2020 (680 Critical Reading, 620 Math, 720 Writing)

SAT Subject Test(s): 760 Literature, 630 Math I, 660 Spanish, 690 U.S. History

High School GPA: 93 (out of 100)

High School: Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, Cambridge, MA

Hometown: Cambridge, MA

Gender: Female

Race: South Asian

Applied To

Brown University (early decision)

Essay

Fatimah used the following essay in her application to Brown University.

Describe a person who has influenced you.

My eyes immediately rested on the second seat in the first row, where a twelve-year-old boy reclined backwards in his chair. They remained fixed on his nonchalant figure as the welcoming introduction to my middle school literature class flowed smoothly from my mouth. The white shirt that hung loosely off his frail body seemed like enough clothing to drape a small town and the complacent smirk across his face foreshadowed that he would be my “trouble maker,” the type of student that I had been warned would be intolerable in my class. On that day it did not occur to me what an impact one twelve-year-old could have.

Weeks later, his head hung low as the discussion turned to stereotypes, a theme in our story. The confident smirk that he wore faded as it was his turn to speak. “They think I’m stupid. Because of what I look like,” he answered dully, trying to shrug it off as though he did not care. The other students in the class nodded placidly, and my stomach twisted into a knot. Vainly I tried to argue with them, but it was clear that my students had made up their minds. As a fifteen year old Pakistani girl who grew up in a liberal urban environment, I always considered myself to be non-judgmental. Naively I thought that my conditioning had raised me to be fully accepting of everyone around me. However, upon labeling Jose as a problem child, I violated the commandments of good teaching. Suppressing him by confining him to a stereotype would limit his progress. The effect of what I had deemed to be a harmless stereotype hit me hard. Like his other teachers, I had lowered his academic confidence by doubting his ability when I first met him.

The wounds inflicted by his insecurity ran deep. The frustration was prevalent around him as he told me multiple times that he was too stupid to write anything down. Ignoring the excuse that I had previously accepted, I began to push him harder than I had intended, refusing to settle for failure. Using what I knew about his background and upbringing, I began to alter my teaching style, making it more accessible to him. Through my persistence, he grudgingly accepted that he would not be able to worm his way out of assignments. For endless hours I sat with him, trying to tackle literature from different sides as I tried to help him find the beauty in the meanings and ideas that were buried in the pages of the story. The hidden potential that was previously clouded by self-doubt trickled through, and within weeks Jose became one of the best writers in my class. I realized that understanding a student’s background was the key to helping him academically. Without being aware of it, Jose had introduced me to educational anthropology, something that I am interested in pursuing in the future.

A year later I saw him again, registering for camp. Enthusiastically, he told me that his grades in literature went from a C to an A. Entering my first teaching internship at the age of fifteen, I was not expecting to have a life-altering experience; I simply wanted to alleviate summer boredom. However, watching him grow from rolling his eyes in class to getting out of his chair and arguing his point enthusiastically before a panel of other teachers convinced me otherwise. For the first time, I felt truly rewarded for helping another person. I realized that I had succeeded in making a change in at least one student’s life. In witnessing the successes of someone else, I discovered how much potential I have to create change.

See this page to find out where this student got in.