Breaking Through Stereotypes - Harvard - Successful college entrance essay
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
High School: Private school, 208 students in graduating class
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Male
GPA: n/a (school does not calculate)
SAT: Reading 800, Math 780, Writing 780
ACT: n/a
SAT Subject Tests Taken: Literature, U.S. History
Extracurriculars: Crew varsity coxswain, student newspaper editor, Student Government House prefect, InZone Foundation student tutor
Awards: 2015 the Atlantic & College Board Writing Grand Prize, Russell McVeagh Law Scholarship, Victoria University Excellence Scholarship
Major: Undecided
Successful college entrance essay
When I failed math in my sophomore year of high school, a bitter dispute engulfed my household—“Nicolas Yan vs. Mathematics.” I was the plaintiff, appearing pro se, while my father represented the defendant (inanimate as it was). My brother and sister constituted a rather understaffed jury, and my mother presided over the case as judge.
In a frightening departure from racial stereotype, I charged Mathematics with the capital offences of being “too difficult” and “irrelevant to my aspirations,” citing my recent shortcomings in the subject as evidence. My father entered a not guilty plea on the defendant’s behalf, for he had always harbored hopes that I would follow in his entrepreneurial footsteps—and who ever heard of a businessman who wasn’t an accomplished mathematician? He argued that because I had fallen sick before my examination and had been unable to sit one of the papers, it would be a travesty of justice to blame my “Ungraded” mark on his client. The judge nodded sagely.
With heartrending pathos, I recalled how I had studied A-Level Mathematics with calculus a year before the rest of my cohort, bravely grappling with such perverse concepts as the poisson distribution to no avail. I decried the subject’s lack of real-life utility and lamented my inability to reconcile further effort with any plausible success; so that to persist with Mathematics would be a Sisyphean endeavor. Since I had no interest in becoming the entrepreneur that my father envisioned, I petitioned the court for academic refuge in the humanities. The members of the jury exchanged sympathetic glances and put their heads together to deliberate.
In hushed tones, they weighed the particulars of the case. Then, my sister announced their unanimous decision with magisterial gravity: “Nicolas shouldn’t have to do math if he doesn’t want to!” I was ecstatic; my father distraught. With a bang of her metaphorical gavel, the judge sentenced the defendant to “Death by Omission”—and so I chose my subjects for 11th Grade sans Mathematics. To my father’s disappointment, a future in business for me now seemed implausible.
Over the next year, however, new evidence that threw the court’s initial verdict into question surfaced. Languishing on death row, Mathematics exercised its right to appeal, and so our quasi-court re- convened in the living room.
My father reiterated his client’s innocence, maintaining that Mathematics was neither “irrelevant” nor “too difficult.” He proudly recounted how just two months earlier, when my friends had convinced me to join them in creating a business case competition for high school students (clerical note: the loftily-titled New Zealand Secondary Schools Case Competition), I stood in front of the Board of a company and successfully pitched them to sponsor us—was this not evidence that I could succeed in business? I think I saw a tear roll down his cheek as he implored me to give Mathematics another chance.
I considered the truth of his words. While writing a real-world business case for NZSSCC, I had been struck by how mathematical processes actually made sense when deployed in a practical context, and how numbers could tell a story just as vividly as words can. By reviewing business models and comparing financial projections to actual returns, one can read a company’s story and identify areas of potential growth; whether the company then took advantage of these opportunities determined its success. It wasn’t that my role in organizing NZSSCC had magically taught me to embrace all things mathematical or commercial—I was still the same person—but I recognized that no intellectual constraints prevented me from succeeding in Mathematics; I needed only the courage to seize an opportunity for personal growth.
I stood up and addressed my family: “I’ll do it.” Then, without waiting for the court’s final verdict, I crossed the room to embrace my father: and the rest, as they (seldom) say, was Mathematics.
REVIEW
Nicolas opens this essay by doing what some might see as unthinkable: admitting that he failed a math class in high school. In light of the fact that colleges would almost certainly already have this information, this topic fits perfectly into the Common Application prompt about a background that is “so meaningful . . . their application would be incomplete without it.” Just as crucial as his selection of a topic, however, is his decision to frame the piece as a trial for math itself. But even then, he avoids the obvious route of making himself the defendant and chooses to put math on trial. In a surprising twist, he wins his case and is allowed to drop math, much to the dismay of his father. Of course, the most effective part of the essay subtly explains that the story does not end there. The appeal that follows the initial verdict is both creative and effective, showing an important personal transformation for the writer.
This essay is a great example of what happens when the writer takes a risk that pays off. Starting by admitting failure and then putting math “on trial” is not a typical framework for a college essay. But Nicolas’s essay is effective precisely because it is not typical. It is both deeply personal and unique. Indeed, the writer perfectly answers the prompt, providing a meaningful story that places his application in a new context.
From 50 Successful Harvard Application Essays, 5th Edition edited by the Staff of the Harvard Crimson. Copyright (c) 2017 by the authors and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.
