A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.
It’s the Diversity Question the Common Application introduced in 2004-5, it’s there for a reason, it’s tricky to tackle—especially if you're white and come from an insulated suburb or private school where everybody looks just like you. But it should not be ignored or trivialized.
To avoid falling into the trap of writing an answer that's a lame cliché, ie...
- “Making friends with the Black/Asian/physically or learning disabled/white kid in my school taught me that deep down, we’re all the same.”
- “When I visited (insert exotic Third World country) for the first time, I realized how icky it feels to be in the minority.”
...it would help to first know the question’s background.
The diversity question is now part of every college application because of the recent Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action. On 12.21.03, ruling on two separate University of Michigan cases, the Court determined that the Michigan’s Law School admissions policy was constitutional, but the undergraduate admissions office’s use of a minority-favoring point formula was not. The following fall, acting swiftly and creatively, UMich became among the first colleges to introduce to its freshman application a new mandatory essay question that asked prospective students to define and assess their personal experience with diversity, and, the following year, the Common Application followed suit by introducing the diversity question you just read.
So what are you going to say?
As someone who, for the past 12 years has worked with a truly diverse cross section of students, I’m here to tell you any one-dimensional sugar-coated response to the diversity question simply will not do. Far better to account for your discovery of the unique and complex diversity within yourself, which will now enable you to share with your future college classmates your mature understanding that, when it comes to each individual you’ll ever encounter, there are no pat answers.
Here’s a good Uniquely U. example.
Opening Doors
As I nervously pushed open the gym doors, the shrill, foreign voices echoed through my head, and the towering ceiling overwhelmed me. Boys of all ages were running around drenched in sweat, herding a soccer ball. “Aqui, aqui,” they cried, as the blur of their bright colored vests danced in front of my eyes. Surrounded by an orchestra of shouting, pointing, and scrambling, I felt like an outsider stepping into a battle zone. Although I had come to improve my soccer skills, I was tempted to flee. Finally, camouflaged by the yellow pinny that was given to me by the coach, I overcame some of my trepidation, and was able to cross the first threshold into their world.
It was tough to fit in with a group of boys who spoke a different language, had totally different customs, and led very different lifestyles. They had already formed close friendships with each other and I felt as if I, the “gringo,” was intruding on their territory. I kept to myself those first few long weeks until I was able to break the ice with my comic attempts to show off my new and very limited middle school Spanish vocabulary. “Que es tu nombrrrrre?” I would say, rolling my “r”s with an exaggerated accent as smiles and giggles lit up their faces. “Hablas espanol?” they would reply. “Pequito, pequito,” I would respond, to their amusement. However “little” my attempts, they were enough to successfully cross a second threshold. Why was Eugene’s mother still in Peru? I now could learn as my fluency in Spanish steadily improved, why did Oscar have to work after school whereas when I came home and had the time to relax? Why did Santiago’s brother wear two different soccer cleats? Why did some of my teammates stroll onto the field five minutes before a game and all too often not show up for practice?
Speaking the same language, I was surprised to discover, did not eliminate our differences; it actually emphasized them. As talented as my teammates were, I began to understand, they literally could not afford to take soccer as seriously as I did—not when they were needed at home to help put food on the table. To the children of parents who spoke no English and had little formal schooling, soccer could only be regarded as a game, not even as the means to capture the attention of a college coach. On the field we were a fluid unit. But off the field, our differences inevitably hindered our success. Frustrated by what, at the time, I saw as my teammates’ failure to share my seriousness of purpose, at the end of my freshman year of high school, I joined a more achievement-oriented team.
For two years, we went our separate ways—only to discover we had not really parted. This year, reunited on our high school soccer team, I discovered I had crossed yet another threshold: my former “juguettes” selected me to be captain of the team. Originally, I had come to them simply wanting to follow. Now, they had come to me, asking me to lead. Together, through our determined efforts, we won the Fairfield County championship for the first time in our school’s history.
But it wasn’t until after the last game of the season, when we all got in our cars and went home to different lives, that I could see the entire picture. On my first team, everyone was of Hispanic background. My teammates differed from me, but they were not very different from themselves. Our high school team, however, was comprised of Albanians, Italians, and Ukrainians. Ultimately, the reason why we meshed and played our best on our high school team was this: We had all crossed the ultimate threshold into a world of rarely seen universal excellence—together and as equals.
For other examples of multi-dimensional diversity essays, also see:
