Hometown: Rhinebeck, NY

Year: First-Year

College: Saybrook

Major: Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology (MCDB)

Extracurriculars: Broad Recognition magazine, editor-in-chief

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From a young age, Mia Arias Tsang knew she wanted to be a scientist and dreamed of attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But during a visit to IKEA—the closest one was in New Haven—her parents convinced her to take  a look at Yale.

“Walking around the school, I was so mad,” Mia said. “It was making me like the school so much.”

A few months later, Mia matched with Yale through QuestBridge, an application program that pairs high-achieving, low-income students with top universities. An acceptance letter from MIT made her pause, but after leaving the accepted students’ weekend in Cambridge, Mia knew she would be in New Haven for the next four years. From the people she met during Bulldog Days to the strength of Yale’s writing program, Mia was drawn to the diversity of experiences that awaited her in a liberal arts education.

Mia grew up “soaked in culture” from an Ecuadorian mother and a Chinese-Mexican father. Hailing from Rhinebeck Senior High School in Rhinebeck, New York, Mia said her college admissions experience was not typical of public schools. Mia was part of a small graduating class of around a hundred students, most of whom chose their extracurriculars and packed their schedules with college in mind early in their high school careers.

“The college admissions atmosphere was really intense,” she said. “People were doing stuff for college starting sophomore year, and that wasn’t me at all.”

Taking a more laid-back approach to high school, Mia didn’t find her schoolwork stressful. She filled her free time raising awareness about wildlife and habitat conservation for the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust as part of Rhinebeck’s environmental club, partnering with her chemistry teacher to run experiments for a kids after-school program with the Science Club, and tapping into a different side of her interests in the Creative Writing Club.

Since arriving at Yale, Mia has continued pursuing her passions, studying antibiotic-resistant bacteria in an evolutionary biology lab and becoming editor-in-chief of Broad Recognition, an online feminist magazine on campus.

Her first semester exemplified the well-rounded academic experience she hoped to find at Yale. Mia balanced foundational courses in biology and chemistry for her major in Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology with “1,000 Years of Love Songs” (a first-year seminar about music) and a Spanish class.

When she isn’t in Saybrook College, her home away from home, Mia can be found studying in her favorite spot in New Haven, Koffee on Audubon; jamming to local indie bands at Radiohouse; or grabbing late-night Mamoun’s with her friends. Her favorite thing about Yale? The gorgeous campus that first changed her mind when she was still a senior in high school.

Mia’s essays include four of her Yale supplemental essays.

ESSAY 1 (QUESTBRIDGE ESSAY):
Tell us about one of your proudest achievements or moments and what it says about you.

It was an afternoon in August, during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I was about to pick up where I left off in one of my summer reading books when I heard a voice in my head say,

“I’m not going to kiss you.”

Partial lines of dialogue have a habit of popping into my head whenever they want. I’ve been writing since I was in first grade, so I’ve had a lot of time to get used to this. Something was different this time, though. I closed my eyes. The speaker appeared: a seventeen-year-old boy with dark eyes and darker hair.

With him came an entire plot.

Exposition, climax, resolution. Everything all wrapped up with a neat little bow.

I scrambled to my desk and began to write. I filled an entire notebook with a rough outline in a matter of hours. It was more than enough material for a novel.

A year prior, I had participated in National Novel Writing Month. Writers attempt to write a fifty-thousand-word novel in the thirty days of November. That year, I went in blind. I hadn’t really known what my story was about or where it was going. I only made it to thirty thousand words.

Now I had an entire outline. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. So I decided to try again. This time, I vowed, I would do it. I would write a book.

I waited for November with increasing impatience. Finally, the first of the month arrived. After school that day, I ran to my computer and began to write. Every day that month I finished my homework as quickly as possible, then sat at the computer and wrote until I physically couldn’t stare at the screen any longer.

There were days when I couldn’t get a scene quite right, or a piece of dialogue wasn’t flowing, or a character was acting, well, out of character. That frustration made me wonder, “Why can’t I just take a day off?” But I knew that it would be more difficult to keep going if I stopped, so I pushed through. The word count ticked steadily higher. At last, the morning after Thanksgiving, I hit fifty thousand words. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Shock, satisfaction, and ecstasy rolled over me in one overwhelming wave.

I wrote a book.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t finished. But I set out to write a book, and that’s exactly what I did.

The challenge only made reaching my goal all the more rewarding. I took on a difficult task and never gave up. Even when I felt like I would never make it to fifty thousand words, I wrote on. Something deep inside me needed to tell this story, and that love and passion gave me the perseverance to finish what I started.

I wrote a book.

I will always be proud of that.

ESSAY 2 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Tell us about a concept, theory, or subject that has piqued your intellectual curiosity. What steps have you taken or do you want to take to further explore that interest?

In seventh grade I took my first biology class and was introduced to genetics. At first, it was difficult to wrap my head around the fact that a sequence of four chemicals joined together with sugar and phosphates holds instructions that dictate almost all of who we are. There had to be more to it than the brief explanation my teacher gave. So I did some more research on my own. I devoured Wikipedia entries, New York Times articles, and books from the meager science section in the school library, but my curiosity couldn’t be satisfied. As soon as one question of mine was answered, another would arrive to take its place.

One day, I found a summer program offered by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. Students attended one-week camps to learn more about genetics and related lab procedures. After some prodding, my mother signed me up for my first camp, “World of Enzymes.” I returned every summer after that and took almost every camp they had to offer. But that didn’t stop my research. I still scour the Science Times every week and Nautilus magazine every two months for news about discoveries in the field.

ESSAY 3 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
If you could meet a character from a book or a historical figure, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Rosalind Franklin is my hero. Her work with X-ray diffraction was integral to the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, but the fact that she was a woman working in science, a male-dominated field, in the 1950s is impressive enough. If I could ever have spoken with her, I would ask questions about her research not just on DNA structure but also on virus structure. I would also ask her what it was like to work in an environment where she was the only woman, and what advice she would give to girls who want to go into STEM. Franklin died at 37 from ovarian cancer, due to her near-constant exposure to x-rays. I know she could have done so much more if she only had time. So I would ask her where she planned to take her research on viruses, since that was what she was working on when she died. Finally, I would make sure to tell her how much she has inspired me and so many others. She never got the recognition she deserved for her incredible work when she was alive, and I wish I could tell her that today, her name is known.

ESSAY 4 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Short takes

What are your favorite books and/or movies?

Books: Jane Eyre, All the Light We Cannot See, Outliers, A Sense of Where You Are, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Movies: Ruby Sparks, Frequencies, About Time, Dead Poets Society, Heathers

What is your favorite source of inspiration?

I draw most of my inspiration from my curiosity. I’m always thinking of “What ifs” and “Whys,” and my burning desire to answer them has made me unafraid to think outside of what is “conventional” in order to find a solution.

How do you spend a typical weekend?

When I’m not doing homework or babysitting, I’m either reading, working on my latest creative writing piece, or going out on day trips to Hudson, Woodstock, or New York City with my parents.

What is the compliment you have been paid that you are most proud of? Who gave you the compliment?

In 2007, we went to Ecuador to meet my ninety-seven-year-old great-grandmother. The day we left she took my face in her hands and said, “You are wise beyond your years.” Coming from the wisest woman I’ve ever known, it meant the world.

After a challenging experience, how do you rejuvenate?

Sometimes I put on my “coffee shop” Spotify playlist (Jack Johnson, Pink Martini, Madeleine Peyroux, etc) in the background and read. Other times, I watch the Golden State Warriors games with my dad or cheesy TV with my mom.

If you could change one thing about your high school, what would it be and why?

I wish my school was more diverse. I’m one of very few people of color there, and I’ve always wanted to be able to talk to people who can identify with the experiences I’ve had as a minority.

What would you contribute to your future college campus community?

I love writing, so I would definitely get involved with literary magazines and newspapers on campus. I would also join community outreach groups, particularly those that focus on Hispanic empowerment.

From 50 Yale Admission Success Stories: And the Essay That Made Them Happen, edited by the Yale Daily News Staff. Copyright © 2020 by the authors
and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.