Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
I once called a drag queen on television a freak, out loud, so my father in the next chair would hear me say it. She was mid-song, sequins catching the light, and I said the word plainly, like a boy proving something. My father didn't look up. That was the point. He was supposed to hear it and think: good, that's my son, that's the one who will carry the family forward.
I am the eldest son. In my family that comes with a job. My parents called it being the carrier of the potent seed, and they meant it without irony, meant grandchildren, a wife, brothers looking up at me to see how a man is done. What I actually carried was the memory of a boy named John in sixth grade, and the specific heat of wanting to be near him, which I understood immediately I was never supposed to feel.
The trouble was my hands. Kids at school decided my hand gestures were effeminate, innocent things I'd done my whole life, and they read them like a confession. Then came the slurs. Sometimes a slap in a hallway where teachers weren't looking. After each one I'd go stiff and stale, like granite, icy, numb, and I'd just stand there being cold while the hallway moved around me. So I started watching myself. I trained my wrists to stay flat. I rehearsed how to sit, how to laugh, how to hold a pencil so no one could use it against me.
None of that fixed anything. So I tried other things. I read about Buddhism and decided I could go ascetic, that if I emptied out the desire it would simply leave, the way water leaves a dish. It didn't leave. The next morning I still woke up wanting the same things, so I got up and reached for the only thing that felt clean: the work. I filled my hours with schoolwork and clubs and community service, building a version of myself made entirely of what I'd done instead of what I was. Every day looked the same, I'd redo it anyway, because a boy with a full calendar is harder to reduce to one word.
For a long time I aimed that same hatred outward. Drag queens, trans people, the loud activists on the news, I called them freaks so I'd feel closer to normal, like standing next to them would make me look further from them. Then I read Foucault. Something in the arrangement shifted. If a Homosexual was a category somebody had built, a thing invented and then policed, then the drag queen and I were being sorted by the same machine. We weren't different kinds of people. We were the same problem seen from two angles. I started noticing who got mocked in my own hallways and who didn't, and what I saw was that the sorting was never really about them. It was about the people doing the sorting.
I am trying now to say the word about myself. Homosexual. I say it quietly, in my room, and my hands do the thing again, that flutter I spent years pinning down, except now I let them. My voice is not steady when I practice it. Because saying it for real, to my parents, could mean they stop calling me their son, and I know that isn't a dramatic guess. It's a live possibility I have run the numbers on. There is no version of this where I finish the sentence and feel safe.
I still say it.
The television is on again. A drag queen is mid-performance, sequins catching the same light. My father is in the next chair. This time I don't say anything to him. I just let myself watch.
The story this essay was written from
These are the applicant's own notes — the raw experience they started with, before any draft existed. Compare it with the essay above to see which details were kept, cut, and turned into a scene.
Facts:
- I'm queer, Asian, and grew up upper-middle-class in Orange County (behind the 'Orange Curtain').
- I'm the eldest son in my family.
- I remember first feeling lust for a boy named John in sixth grade.
- I expected to grow up to be a heterosexual doctor, marry a 'dutiful Asian bride,' and have a lot of kids.
- My parents are traditional Asian parents who expected me to be the heterosexual role model for my brothers and carry on the family line.
- I play flute and write a few greeting-card-style poems.
- I'm applying to Harvard and talk about activism there.
- I did AIDS activism and community service in high school.
- I used to distance myself from drag queens, transsexuals, and 'flaming' gay activists to seem more normal.
The experience:
- As a kid I didn't think much about my attraction to boys, it just seemed normal to me at the time.
- My peers started treating me differently, mocking me for hand gestures they read as effeminate.
- I started watching myself neurotically to avoid seeming effeminate.
- I experienced violence and slurs from peers.
- I watched other kids pair off into couples and felt I could never have that easily.
- I realized coming out as gay would mean risking disownment from my parents.
- I tried going ascetic and diving into Buddhism to try to get rid of my desires.
- That didn't work because my peers had already decided my sexuality defined me, so I came out instead.
- Coming out was anticlimactic, I expected to feel braver and stronger and I didn't.
- I was already seen as 'flamboyant' so I never felt fully closeted to begin with.
- I threw myself into schoolwork, extracurriculars, and community service to try to build a different identity based on achievement instead of my sexuality.
- Even with good grades and a full resume I still felt numb and sick inside.
- I read Foucault and started thinking about queerness as a social construction rather than a fixed identity.
- I started to reject the idea that my sexuality is the single defining fact about me.
- I'm now trying to embrace the label 'Homosexual' instead of running from it or feeling ashamed of it.
- I plan to keep doing the same kinds of activism I did in high school at Harvard, plus get more involved in the LGBT community specifically since my hometown limited that.
- I want to move past AIDS-only activism into broader work on sexuality and human rights, and study identity politics.
Anecdotes:
- I remember the boy's name, John, sixth grade, as my first memory of lust.
- Kids mocked me for 'innocent hand gestures' and I started policing my own body language.
- I describe feeling 'stiff and stale, like granite, icy, numb' after each slur or slap.
- I pictured myself as being walled in, watching couples form outside the walls I was building around myself.
- My family wanted me to be 'the carrier of the potent seed' for the next generation.
- I call myself, sarcastically, someone who tried to be a 'stellar transcript,' hours of community service, flute-playing, poem-writing model student.
- I describe my body as 'floating in black and crimson,' dizzy and nauseous despite being an A-student.
- I mention being able to use my 'Harvard successes' like a shawl and my résumé to fend off enemies.
- I say I'm tired of wondering if I'll need to carry mace on campus or if an employer will think I'm too effeminate.
- I used to call drag queens and trans people 'freaks' to make myself feel more normal, then later called myself 'a crusading warrior princess.'
- I bring in Foucault's idea of queerness as a constructed, 'implanted perversity.'
- I contrast the 'barbie doll cheerleader' and 'diesel dyke,' or 'muscle-bound jock' and 'leather queen,' as equally constructed identities.
My thought:
- I don't want my sexuality to be treated as the single defining fact of who I am.
- I believe queerness, like straightness, is a social construction, not a natural essence, and that doesn't make it less real or meaningful.
- I want to integrate my sexuality with my race, class, and age instead of putting it above everything else.
- I want to move past AIDS-focused activism into broader work on sexuality, human rights, and identity politics.
- I'm still figuring out how to talk about all these parts of myself together, but I'm committed to keep working on it.
Why this college essay works
Why this works structurally: This is a transformation arc built on a returning frame: the opening drag-queen scene is reversed in the closing one, and the single word "freak" (hurled outward) becomes "Homosexual" (claimed inward). Each middle paragraph is a failed or partial strategy that escalates toward the Foucault turn, so the intellectual insight feels earned rather than dropped in. The identity is shown through behavior long before it is named, and the naming coincides with the emotional climax. The prompt asked for a meaningful identity the application would be incomplete without, and this essay delivers exactly that with control and precision. How the requested traits show up: Trait "Courage" is shown here: "There is no version of this where I finish the sentence and feel safe. / I still say it." — He names the real danger of losing his family and chooses honesty anyway, which is courage enacted, not claimed. Trait "Social Consciousness" is shown here: "the drag queen and I were being sorted by the same machine. We weren't different kinds of people. We were the same problem seen from two angles." — He reframes personal shame as a systemic mechanism of categorization, showing awareness beyond himself. Trait "Resilience" is shown here: "Every day looked the same, I'd redo it anyway, because a boy with a full calendar is harder to reduce to one word." — He keeps rebuilding a self through repeated effort despite each strategy failing, showing endurance under pressure.
Paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown
- opening scene, the slur Establishes the central conflict through action rather than statement, showing the boy performing straightness for his father. It works: "I said the word plainly, like a boy proving something. My father didn't look up. That was the point."
- the eldest son's job Names the family pressure that raises the stakes of the identity, tying his role to what he cannot be. It works: "What I actually carried was the memory of a boy named John in sixth grade, and the specific heat of wanting to be near him."
- the hands, the policing Shows how the outside world read and punished him, and his response of self-surveillance. It works: "I trained my wrists to stay flat. I rehearsed how to sit, how to laugh, how to hold a pencil so no one could use it against me."
- Buddhism and the work Documents attempts to erase or bury the identity, escalating the coping into productivity. It works: "a boy with a full calendar is harder to reduce to one word."
- Foucault, the turn The intellectual and moral pivot where projected hatred becomes analysis of the systems doing the sorting. It works: "the sorting was never really about them. It was about the people doing the sorting."
- saying the word The climax of self-acceptance under real risk, the identity spoken at last. It works: "It's a live possibility I have run the numbers on. There is no version of this where I finish the sentence and feel safe."
- "I still say it." A one-line paragraph that lands the courage decisively without ornament. It works as pure resolve.
- return to the TV Closes the frame by rewriting the opening scene, showing change through inaction. It works: "This time I don't say anything to him. I just let myself watch."
Essay analysis
Prompt asks: The student is asked to share a background, identity, interest, or talent so meaningful their application would be incomplete without it. Essay answer: "I am trying now to say the word about myself. Homosexual." — The essay reveals a gay identity forged against family expectation and internalized shame, directly answering the prompt with a background that defines the writer.