Gathering the flock - Yale - College personal statement advice
Hometown: Leesburg, VA
Year: Junior
College: Benjamin Franklin
Major: Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Extracurriculars: Society of Women Engineers; Yale Scientific Magazine, writer; Yale Resonance Conference
College personal statement advice
Profile
While Kendrick Umstattd was thinking of where to apply to college, an alum from her high school who attended Yale came to give a talk about her time at the university. The alum brought along a copy of Yale Scientific Magazine. After attending the meeting—and reading the magazine—Kendrick knew that she wanted to apply to Yale. Once Kendrick was accepted, the admissions office set up a phone call between her and a current Yale student also interested in robotics and computer science. The conversation convinced Kendrick that Yale was the right choice for her.
Now, at Yale, the Virginia native is an electrical engineering and computer science double major. In addition to her work with the Yale Robotics Lab and tenure as the Webmaster for Benjamin Franklin College, Kendrick is a member of Yale’s Society of Women Engineers and a writer for Yale Scientific Magazine. Kendrick says that before college, she had been focused on finding a cause to serve that was bigger than herself, and she spent her high school years leading a community service club and cofounding a robotics club. Kendrick was eager to pursue these passions after meeting classmates who were similarly motivated.
Over the past three years, Kendrick has participated in the Yale Resonance Conference, an annual conference seeking to inspire high schoolers to pursue science through seminars and science-related activities and lab tours, as a speaker, a teacher, and as a director. Beyond Yale, she has brought her passion for encouraging more young women to pursue computer science and engineering to her internships at Google, where she will work full-time as a software engineer upon graduation. She organized and held a Made with Code coding event for local teen girls to empower them to pursue computer science, and also served as the first intern team member of the Women of Silicon Valley and produced the 2018 Intern Series to highlight female interns through Medium articles and social media posts.
During Kendrick’s first year at Yale, a member of the Yale Social Robotics Lab gave a lecture in her Introduction to Cognitive Science class. Inspired by the talk, Kendrick joined the lab and worked on a project creating socially assistive robots that could help teach autistic children social skills. They deployed the robots in households across the United States in early 2018.
Kendrick says she cannot choose just one favorite memory of Yale, but her top three are Yale’s famous first-year holiday dinner—hosted in the massive Commons dining hall—and its “Hogwarts energy”; creating traditions in Benjamin Franklin after its founding in 2017; and, finally, greeting dining hall staff at meals because it “feels like seeing family.” Kendrick says that there is not one specific experience that makes Yale so important to her; rather, it is the holistic sense of a welcoming, loving community that makes Yale feel like home.
Kendrick’s essays include her Common App personal statement.
ESSAY 1 (COMMON APP):
Personal Statement
Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
I grew up with activist parents in a rapidly diversifying town. My mother was the mayor and my father was a lawyer who worked pro bono for disadvantaged clients. I had seen the value of giving a voice to those who might otherwise be ignored. I didn’t know, however, that high school would give me a chance to do so.
With over a hundred members, Keyettes is my high school’s largest service club. As a freshman, I joined because I knew that my capacity to help the community would be amplified by working with a varied, talented group. I had previously raised hundreds of dollars for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital with my Tae-Kwon-Do dojang, and I felt the same energy from the Keyettes that I had felt from my martial arts fundraising team.
At the Keyettes’ initial meetings, the freshmen and sophomores chatted excitedly before the senior officers spoke, discussing the upcoming events in which they wanted to participate. We wanted to be involved and to help those who were less fortunate. But I watched some of this excitement leave the faces of the underclassmen, including mine, when the seniors gave the underclassmen little opportunity to participate. I was disheartened that the message we heard was that the club was for the upperclassmen. Hoping to change this, even though, as I was told later, it was against club rules, I ran for officer at the end of my freshman year, becoming the first sophomore to be voted in as an officer of the club.
At first, I believed that my election would end the two-tiered system. I worked closely with the younger members, listening to their ideas and trying to relay them to the seniors with whom I was working. The other officers, however, had a different idea, and that idea did not include giving underclassmen a chance to shape the club or our interaction with the community. “Seniors Only” service activities were created, and the club’s ability to serve the public was diminished.
I was able to work around the senior officers to an extent, and I coordinated the 2013 annual fashion show to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I ensured that the underclassmen were involved in every aspect of preparation: baking for the bake sale, modeling, and decorating. As underclassmen worked to prepare, I saw the club’s potential increase, and, more importantly, I saw how happy the members were to be given the opportunity to contribute. I wanted to preserve this excitement, so, with permission from the club’s faculty sponsor, I ran for Keyettes president, despite the senior officers’ protests that only rising seniors could run.
Reaching out to underclassmen, I won on the platform that I would protect their voice in the club.
As president of Keyettes my junior year, I safeguarded the ideas of those who had been marginalized. For the first time, all members voted on activities that they wanted. The senior officers, with whom I served, wanted to cancel the 2014 fashion show, taking away the club’s best opportunity to raise money—this time for Backpack Buddies, a group which provides food to our underprivileged students. I notified all members, urging them to attend the next meeting and show their support for the fundraiser. Many underclassmen came and voted in favor of the show. On the day of the event, I watched as a record number of underclassmen showed up to prepare.
At the end of my presidency, I focused on the fact that the leadership was all white and, except for me, all seniors. The officers weren’t fully representative of those who wanted to serve the club and the community. I encouraged freshmen, sophomores and minority students to run for office. The officers are no longer exclusively white, and there are now two underclassmen who serve. I am proud that this small step forward for inclusion is my contribution to my school.
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.