Hometown: Hong Kong

Year: Sophomore

College: Morse

Major: Architecture

Extracurriculars: Yale Daily News, Weekend section editor; Hong Kong Students Association, president

Free sample college personal statement

Profile

Growing up in Hong Kong, Hana Davis wore the same oversized Yale sweater to sleep every night—the sweater her father had bought thirty years ago as a law student at Yale. She knew she wanted to be a Yalie since she was a child, in part because of her Gossip Girl obsession at age thirteen (the show’s main character, Blair Waldorf, had a similar infatuation with the school of Yale’s bulldog mascot, Handsome Dan). As a high school senior, Hana had her heart set on Yale, though she encourages others to keep an open mind and consider a variety of colleges during the college admissions process.

Today, that worn-out sweater, a reminder of home, hangs in Hana’s dorm room closet in Morse College. A sophomore architecture major, she splits her free time between writing and illustrating for the Yale Layer (an undergraduate magazine focused on mental health), editing the Yale Daily News Weekend section, and leading the Hong Kong Students Association. In light of her activist parents and upbringing in Hong Kong, it’s no surprise that Hana has fostered a fighting spirit and passion for human rights, with regards to Hong Kong’s autonomy from China in particular. Outside of her classes and extracurriculars, Hana is also a student in the Multidisciplinary Academic Program in Human Rights, an undergraduate program offered by Yale Law School.

In high school, Hana spent most of her time on the field, on the court, or in a studio by way of various sports teams and dance classes (she admits that she is now far less physically active at Yale, where she has shifted her extracurricular focus toward writing). She was never one for debate competitions or Model United Nations conferences. Rather, Hana preferred to paint, sculpt, or photograph. She says that she has always had a passion for art, her favorite International Baccalaureate subject from high school.

When Hana arrived at Yale, she had no intention of ever pursuing art in the classroom. Her parents suggested she consider architecture, but Hana—who identified as a prospective history, political science, or Ethnicity, Race, & Migration major—laughed at the idea. But she was willing to give Introduction to Architecture a chance.

It was there, sitting for a lecture in Linsly-Chittenden Hall, that Hana realized her parents might have had a point. As the professor presented the architectural dilemma faced by city planners considering what might arise after the Berlin Wall had been torn down, Hana understood that the field was the perfect combination of all of her interests.

“Coming here has only proved—maybe me kind of being overly obsessed with Yale wasn’t misplaced,” Hana chuckled.

Hana’s essays include her Common App personal statement and one of her Yale supplemental essays.

ESSAY 1 (COMMON APP):

Personal statement

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 was raised in the streets.

I grew up sitting on my father’s shoulders, my tiny head sticking out above a mass of thousands. I grew up marching between my parents in an orderly line, down crowded Hong Kong streets. I grew up sitting on the ground of Victoria Park, every year on the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, with a brightly glowing candle cupped between my ever-growing hands.

When I was a baby, I would lie in my crib with my tiny hands curled into tight fists, one arm raised above my head as if punching the air in indignation. My mother would laugh and say I was born a fighter. There’s a photo of me from around the age of five, where I’m standing on a crowded Hong Kong street. I doubt I had any clue at the time as to why I was there, but the sense of determination and infectious fervor were clearly reflected in my eyes.

That same perseverance and spirit were reflected again in my eyes, and in the eyes of thousands of other Hong Kong students during the Umbrella Movement. As I sat on the highway with the thick humid air hanging over the city, I felt a cool calm because I sensed in that moment a feeling of empowerment—not because I knew China would back down, or that our efforts would succeed, but because I felt that in that moment I had millions of people supporting me, working with me and helping me. It was the first time I had truly understood the power of the masses.

That day, as I cautiously made my way to Central, an indescribable feeling surged in my chest as I neared the crowds. I sat on the freeway in a lopsided circle with my friends, instead of within the protective shield of my parents as I had done countless times before. We snacked and joked and studied for upcoming exams, yet we could all feel, in the lighthearted atmosphere, a sense of unexpressed tension, a feeling of dignified resistance.

That was the first time I had gone alone to a protest. That was the first time I had truly been present in a movement. That was the first time I was utterly aware of what was going on; the first time I had felt an absolute resolve to do my best to fight for my beliefs and defend our rights. That was the day before unthinkable violence broke out on the streets of my hometown. We had a discussion once in Chinese class about the Occupy Central movement. Virtually all in my class were against the movement for a variety of reasons, mainly the inconvenience it caused them; everyone, that is, except me. I stood in defense of the revolution, in defense of Hong Kong’s need for democracy, in defense of the thousands of people sitting out on the streets for months, being braver than I could possibly imagine.

With a human rights lawyer for a father and a political scientist for a mother, I’ve never known another reality.

ESSAY 2 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Please reflect on something you would like us to know about you that we might not learn from the rest of your application, or on something about which you would like to say more.

“Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.”

—Victor Pinchuk

The dying sun filters through the forest of buildings and illuminates the dust in the air, saturating the messy room with a golden tinge and creating an ephemeral beauty reminiscent of Satis House.

The symphony of screeching tires, hocking hawkers, and bargaining shoppers filter through open windows. The smell of freshly squeezed paint combines with the waft of stinky tofu and grilled charsiu from the street below; the sensory explosion is complete.

As the music in my ear swells to a crescendo my brush touches the canvas. The clouds in my mind clear up and my vision tunnels onto my painting. I morph into something unearthly. The brush becomes an extension of my arm; the canvas a protective shell; and the paint, like oxygen pulsing through my veins, becomes an integral part of my survival.

I’ve become one with ‘my’ corner of the brightly colored, albeit cramped and messy studio. Like my bones, the four walls are part of the architecture of my being.

Painting has always been a pleasure I hold dear to my heart. It’s the weight that grounds me when I’m about to float off. However, for me, art is not simply an enjoyable pastime.

Art informs my world—from my passion for human rights, to my voracious appetite for global news, to my penchant for pleasure reading, and my adoration of words—art is the net that binds my interests and the lens that colours my perspective.

I don’t view my passions in isolation; I believe they’re all irretrievably linked within me. Art has tinted my outlook on the world and taught me to view situations from a different angle. It has given me creativity and an appreciation of how easily societies can be swayed. From Ai Weiwei’s provocative art to Mao’s propaganda posters, art contributes to political struggles, speaks to fear, and reaches masses in a way that no other media can. Art transcends time and space; it breaks language barriers and touches and unites the world in an utterly unique way.

In literature, I am pulled by an unseen magnetic field toward sentences and words that are beautiful in appearance and sound. Just as certain art has the ability to stun me into silence, I have always been spellbound by the magic a few letters can hold. To me, novels are mystical combinations of word and letter creating powerful spells. As Leonardo da Vinci eloquently expressed, “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

My passions are woven together by the yarn of art into a tapestry of creativity and a desire to help the world. With the firmest of convictions, I believe Henry Van Dyke’s words: “Use the talents you possess, the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best;” and with my paint-splattered hands, that is precisely what I endeavour to do.

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.