One of us - Yale - Sample college personal statement
Hometown: Boston, MA
Year: First-Year
College: Ezra Stiles
Major: Undecided
Extracurriculars: Varsity Fencing; Refugee and Immigrant Students Education; Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association
Sample college personal statement
Profile
As early as elementary school, Jacqueline Hayre-Pérez started asking questions about teachings in her church, and she was a frequent visitor to the dean’s office throughout middle and high school. She recalls questioning the definition of “civilization” in her Western civilizations class on her first day of high school, contesting that war was one of its necessary characteristics.
Jacqueline comes from a multicultural and multireligious background. Her family is Puerto Rican and Punjabi, as well as both Roman Catholic and Sikh.
“I used to resent that the faculty and administrators didn’t come from a point of view where they could understand my experience with racism in their classrooms and the school as a whole,” she says. “I later stopped thinking with an us-them complex and realized how much of themselves they gave so that I would grow.”
She gives credit for her inquisitive nature to her father, an engineer who pushed her to ask the “seven whys” and look for the root of any problem. She says her babysitter Tracy also inspired her to question misguided authority.
Jacqueline says she considers herself a free thinker.
“I was always a bit out there, and I like to think that Boston has always been a city of rebels,” she said, adding that although she spent most of her life in the suburbs, she self-identifies as a Boston kid.
At Yale, Jacqueline treasures the diversity in the student body, which is made up of people from all walks of life who empower and inspire her every day. Jacqueline has maintained her sensitivity and passion for learning from others’ experiences and serves as a tutor for Refugee and Immigrant Student Education and a volunteer for Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association.
Although Jacqueline is still undecided about her major, taking a “fascinating” natural disasters class inspired her to consider majoring in geology and geophysics. She says that the class, simply called Natural Disasters, allowed her to learn more about natural phenomena through a scientific lens. Still, she is also passionate about political science, Middle Eastern studies, and religious studies.
A walk-on member of the women’s varsity fencing team, Jacqueline also enjoys hiking on Yale Outdoors trips and walking at the nearby East Rock Park. She says she values the close friendships she has made with other students at Yale. Still, Jacqueline notes that the Yale community is not immune to dogma.
“I think this sense of ‘I must be right’ and ‘I must be successful’ really clouds people’s ability to be open-minded and hear out other people,” she said.
After Yale, Jacqueline hopes to attend law and divinity schools.
Jacqueline’s essays include four of her Yale supplemental essays.
ESSAY 1 (COMMON APP):
Yale’s Modern Middle East Studies (MMES) program is unique in two respects: the size of its faculty and its integration of Hebrew Studies. The faculty size increases the breadth and depth of topics taught; where one professor may emphasize the significance of tribal affiliations in society, another may emphasize the intersection of religious values and practices across coexisting ethnic groups. The Middle East is a concentration of myriad factors; its study must be taken from multiple angles. Judaism and the Jewish diaspora deeply impacted the formation of the region and geopolitics today. Yale, appropriately, includes Hebrew Studies in its program.
ESSAY 2 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Short takes
Who or what is a source of inspiration for you?
My history teacher explains the past as a continuum informing the present. His lessons bridge the gap between a static academic understanding of civil rights and my everyday experience with prejudice.
If you could live for a day as another person, past or present, who would it be? Why?
By experiencing the day Sophie Scholl first distributed subversive leaflets, I would learn how she determined the consequences were worth the risk and how she developed her beliefs despite Nazi rule.
You are teaching a Yale course. What is it called?
“We Are All Migrants” explores how migration changes existing identity constructs, for both migrants and locals. It will cumulate into a service project emphasizing dialogue across identity groups.
Most Yale freshmen live in suites of four to six students. What would you contribute to the dynamic of your suite?
I am opinionated yet open minded and eager to learn from my suite-mates and peers. I create space for open conversations where ideas are heard and respected before they are challenged or affirmed.
ESSAY 3 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Reflect on your engagement with a community to which you belong. How do you feel you have contributed to this community?
I am part of Wheeler and Greylodge dormitories even though I am not a boarder. By October, new underclassmen stop asking why I stay late for dinner almost every evening, why I am on campus on Saturdays, why I help out with dorm events and participate in dorm challenges claimed by Wheeler’s pink bandana. I am part of the community, helping lead community dinners, active in weekend activities, and generally around. I explain how vacuums work, help with move in, packing and unpacking, and finding things on campus. In the minutes before room checks, I help messier friends pitch laundry back into drawers and books onto shelves. I remember tidbits from overnights and listen carefully to everyday banter in the common room, bringing pieces back to Student Council and my weekly dean’s meetings; even though my co-president and I are both day students, I am determined that the needs of our boarding community are heard and acted upon. More importantly, I set the example that I want and love being part of the dorms, which touches many who are looking to recreate their sense of home when they could not be farther from the families and homes they have known.
ESSAY 4 (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.
I am passionate about driving change, as a student leader, active community member, and global citizen, through conversation and compromise. The Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) and Dana’s Women of Color Affinity Group are spaces upholding a shared commitment to equity, social justice, and change. SDLC brought together hundreds of students representing myriad intersections of identity to discuss access and inclusion in our schools and communities. I was not the only mixed race Indian-Hispanic, practitioner of two religions, or woman of color. At the core of our discussions was a shared understanding underlying our many differences. Simultaneously, however, many students spoke from identities vastly different from mine. In all conversations, we spoke from personal experience to address a range of issues from multiple otherwise unrepresented perspectives. By contrast, Dana’s affinity group sits at a single table. We are largely alone in the specifics of our individual identities; however, our underlying unity creates unprecedented opportunities for me to learn from peers of distinct backgrounds. In both spaces, I am empowered by my peers and the lessons I learn through listening across differences. I become more thoughtful and inclusive when I am both challenged and validated by my peers.
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.