College essays that made a difference - Princeton Review 2010

Meredith Narrowe
The applicants

Meredith was a one-meter springboard diver all four years of high school, placing third her freshman year, second her sophomore and junior years, and first her senior year in the state diving championship. She served as National Honor Society president, played in the school band, and twirled flags with the color guard.

Stats

SAT: 1370 (710 Critical Reading, 660 Math)

SAT Subject Test(s): 730 U.S. History, 650 Math Level 1

ACT: 29

High School GPA: 4.14

High School: King Kekaulike High School, Pukalani, Maui, HI

Hometown: Pukalani, Maui, HI

Gender: Female

Race: Caucasian

Applied To

Brown University

Columbia University

Occidental College

Pomona College

Scripps College

Stanford University

Essay

Meredith used the following essay in her application to Stanford and modified it for her application to Pomona.

How has the place in which you live influenced the person you are? Define “place” any way that you like … as a context, a country, a city, a community, a house, a point in time.

Da Kine Diversity

He sauntered over from the neighboring display at the National History Day competition at the University of Maryland with an air of superiority.

“So,” he drawled, “you three won this category last year? Refresh my memory; what was your project’s title?” We turned our attention away from our current History Day display and focused on our competitor.

“It was called Da Kine Talk: Migration to Hawaii Creates Pidgin English … And Controversy,” I replied.

“That’s right,” he conveniently remembered. “What does da kine mean, anyway?”

“It’s a word you use when you don’t know the actual word,” I explained. “If you can’t remember what color your shoes are, you would say their color is da kine.”

“It’s vague, kind of like ’stuff’ or ’whatever,’ ” interjected my teammate. “For example, when asked what your day’s activities will be, your answer would be, ’I’m gonna go da kine.”

“It’s kinda like ’whatchamacalit’,” added my other teammate. “If you are frantically searching for your homework assignment and someone asks, ’What are you looking for?’ you could reply, ’I can’t find my da kine!’ ”

“Oh, I get it,” he sneered. “You won last year without knowing what your title means.” Haughtily, he turned away. We looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. Although we had given three different answers, each was correct and symbolic of a language that sprouted from Hawaii’s unique cultural diversity. Designed as a means for the lunas (overseers) of the canefields to communicate in general terms with laborers of different ethnicities, cultures, and languages, Hawaii’s Pidgin English often fails to yield the clear definition our fellow competitor expected.

Hawaii is known as the ethnic and cultural melting pot of the Pacific. It is a place where my parents are Mainland “immigrants,” and, I suppose, a place where as a haole (Caucasian), I am a minority in my public high school. After growing up in Hawaii, I can discern a thick line between our “island style” and Mainland “normalcy.” Like a keiki (child) of split custody, I experience both worlds regularly. Sure, I have no clue how to operate a rice cooker, but I do know the difference between Island sticky rice and Uncle Ben’s. A good luck cat figurine is absent from my home, but my family follows the custom of removing our rubber slippers before stepping onto our linoleum floor. When I speak with my local friends, I end statements with, “Yeah?”—the customary request for affirmation that your opinion is valid. While attending a three week summer writing program at Carleton College in Minnesota, however, I was surprised to learn that this habit was noticeable and thought of as a Hawaiian “accent” by Mainland students.

Few of my Maui friends would have elected to spend a month of their summer in Minnesota doing more schoolwork. In fact, even fewer of my schoolmates, when confronted with the lure of palm-tree lined beaches, would have opted to spend seven months of sunny Sunday mornings enclosed in a house analyzing the effects of Pidgin English on a century of Hawaiian history as my two teammates and I did. By taking advantage of our unique, isolated culture and the abundant amount of information available, we discovered that history is not old and stale, but is a living, personal part of every society. The possibility of supplementing this discovery in a place where everybody has a similar intellectual curiosity and where a never-ending pool of information exists is mind-boggling and exciting. Imagine a child—whose only video viewing experience has been a black and white silent movie—suddenly allowed an unlimited selection of cartoons at the local video store. Stanford is my ultimate video store, an institution in which my beliefs and ideas will be challenged and augmented by more developed views from different backgrounds and perspectives, both inside and outside the classroom. I will find a new ohana (family) of people who, like myself, crave new experiences and diverse intellectual pursuits. Again, there will be a variety of answers to any question, all describing da kine (truth).

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