Way of life - Yale - College personal statement tips
Hometown: McLean, VA
Year: Junior
College: Timothy Dwight
Major: American Studies
Extracurriculars: Redhot&Blue a cappella; writing partner
College personal statement tips
Profile
Rachel Okun is no stranger to ivory towers juxtaposed with cityscapes—the striking architecture of Yale College, which impresses many upon their arrival, did not faze Rachel one bit.
Rachel grew up in McLean, Virginia, a city outside Washington, D.C. According to Rachel, McLean is a place where people live but do not often stay. It is a commuter city, with many of its inhabitants traveling to and from the country’s capital daily. In the spirit of the city, Rachel also commuted to her high school: the all-girls National Cathedral School. The close proximity of both Gothic architecture and a bustling city gave Rachel a unique high school experience. Because of this, Rachel described having “no culture shock” upon coming to Yale, “which was unsettling in and of itself,” she said.
At Yale, Rachel joined the a cappella group Redhot&Blue—a group that initially focused on jazz repertoire but has since expanded to encompass other genres. Redhot&Blue was one of the first spaces in which Rachel felt a sense of “ecstatic belonging” at Yale. She described Redhot&Blue as the group in which she learned that “I could still be lovable even when I wasn’t particularly lovely,” and strong interpersonal connections were forged as a result.
Rachel’s other extracurricular ventures at Yale were initiated through the Yale College Writing Center. She works as a writing partner and assists peers with their work through the Writing Center, and also takes part in the Sacred Texts and Social Justice program run by the Yale Divinity School— otherwise known as Dante Behind Bars. Dante Behind Bars allows students to lead weekly writing workshops based on Dante’s The Divine Comedy in the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution.
Academically, Rachel is an American studies major who seeks to make a difference in educational systems. For her senior thesis, Rachel interviewed middle-school adolescents, questioning and probing the cliché that middle school is a universally unpleasant period of emotional development. These interests have led Rachel to consider doing work similar to that of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, where academics seek to refine curriculum in a manner that emphasizes the critical role emotions play in teaching and learning.
Although Rachel is nearing the end of her time as an undergraduate at Yale, she does not fear losing the friendships she built. In her experience, the people she has encountered at Yale have been devoted to friendship to an extent that was surprising. For example, during Rachel’s first year, one of her suite-mates noticed the perennial smudges on Rachel’s glasses. One day, Rachel came home to a packet of cleaning wipes taped to her door, accompanied by a message that said, “The world would be even brighter if your glasses were clean.”
Rachel’s essays include her Common App personal statement and three of her Yale supplemental essays.
ESSAY 1 (COMMON APP):
PERSONAL STATEMENT
TREASURING SERVICE
I have a treasure hunt for you.
Your goal: Find ThanksUSA, a 501(c)3 providing $3,000 scholarships to military dependents. My little sister and I birthed our brainchild eight years ago and, so far, ThanksUSA has awarded nearly $10 million in scholarships to over 3,000 children and spouses in all 50 states, across all military branches.
As your guide, I lend you my compass. The military became my true north when Lieutenant Colonel Lanier Ward and his family moved next door in 2005. The public’s and my own attention was drifting away from the war effort in increments of neighborhood trees losing their yellow ribbons. Despite our patriotism, my community made Atlases of our military families, shrugging off our security concerns onto their shoulders. Two Purple Hearts in Iraq prevented Colonel Ward from carrying his daughter and, as I watched them walk to school hand-in-hand, I remember my heart aching the same way teeth do after eating ice cream too quickly. I wanted to thank the military with something more timeless than the tinsel that I stuffed into care packages. How do you repay someone who permits you to be the best version of yourself? I found my answer in the subliminal messages of my elementary school teachers: education is a conduit that allows dammed passion to flow forth and generate change. The gift of education could thank Colonel Ward on the front lines by empowering his family on the home front.
With your sense of direction established, you, like me, need a map from inspiration to positive action. Treasure hunts were a popular route after the film National Treasure, so my family, my third-grade teacher, and a kaleidoscope of characters gathered around the dinner table to design a virtual American history treasure hunt that inspired ThanksUSA’s full name, Treasure Hunt Aiding the Needs of Kids and Spouses of those serving the United States of America, and encouraged donations for scholarships.
You have arrived! When you unearth ThanksUSA, you will find a hoard of multifaceted gems. In one facet, anecdotes from recipients, from first-generation students to spouses returning to college, have illustrated college’s incalculable worth. Academics promote thoughtful questions and incisive analysis, student diversity presents a range of role models, and an unrivaled safety net inclines lifelong learners to leaps of faith. On another plane, I can see my future in education reform, based on a belief that schools should offer mobility contingent on merit and work ethic, the essence of the American Dream our military preserves. On yet another plane, ThanksUSA has linked what I believe in my heart with what I believe I can do, a connection that I hope to share with my classmates as my school’s current Service Board President.
During my tenure, I have endeavored to help each girl discover a compass and map to facilitate her own treasure hunt. Service trips put the “compass” in compassion by introducing girls to a variety of “poles,” magnetically attractive causes that, like ThanksUSA, might induce lifelong purpose. Recently, I considered a map of my school’s culture and decided we could channel the fandom surrounding the dystopian book/movie series, The Hunger Games, toward something noble by initiating “The (End) Hunger Games,” a five-school fundraiser styled as Assassin, where the victor will donate the schools’ joint jackpot to a local charity. While ThankUSA’s compass-and-map model guides my short-term goals, digging into ThanksUSA’s treasure trove reveals my long-term goal. The military epitomizes a mindset that I hope my peers and I can adopt: service is a mentality, a way of life rather than a day in life. This philosophy could refashion the NCS acronym so that it represents not just National Cathedral School, but a new mantra: Never Cease Serving. As I serve, I search for myself, but my X-marks-the-spot never changes: my heart is in my (treasure) chest. In looking for ThanksUSA, you have found me.
ESSAY 2 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
What in particular about Yale has influenced your decision to apply?
The musical That’s Why I Chose Yale added a deal breaker to my criteria: students happy enough to break into song. On my tour, I was thrilled to find that joy of learning embodied by both Yalies and their “Cathedral to Knowledge.” Loquacious tour guide Sanjena Sathian spoke volumes, through word and example, about how Yale encourages both applicants and accepted students to be their best selves. I love this quintessential Yale attitude and the extent to which it permeates the Y* Apply website: Yale is the only college on my list that links advice portals to its writing supplement.
ESSAY 3 (YALE SUPPLEMENT):
Short takes
You have been granted a free weekend next month. How will you spend it?
10:45 am: Bolt Bus arrives in New York City. 12–3 pm: Master class with Tony-Award winner Laura Benanti. 4–7 pm: Listen to Guest Choir at St. Patrick’s.
What is something about which you have changed your mind in the last three years?
I should learn for myself rather than my mentors, for the sake of ingesting rather than impressing.
What is the best piece of advice you have received while in high school?
I asked my brilliant physics professor, “How can I become as smart as you are?” “Read. Read what intrigues you and you won’t forget it.”
What do you wish you were better at being or doing?
Telling funny stories. In a figurative family variety show, my sister and I write the jokes together, but she’s the comedian and I’m the laugh track.
What is a learning experience, in or out of the classroom, that has had a significant impact on you?
My current English teacher provides critiques in the form of questions, proving that criticism can push a person forward as opposed to down.
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 have never seen the “fun” in perfunctory. I gravitate toward the magnum opus rather than the minimum effort, one of many tropisms I attribute to the environment of competitive horseback riding. As input seldom equals output in a sport involving animals instead of inanimate objects, you learn to give your best merely because offering your partner anything less is sacrilege. My horse’s simplest gestures humble me. When I rub Annie’s neck, I mimic the motion of predators searching for her jugular vein, yet she fights her flight instincts. While Annie chooses to throw off years of evolutionary history instead of me, I embrace another adaptation from my equestrian past: blinders for benchmarks. The word “riding” evokes open spaces and long roads and the discipline itself emphasizes the journey. Focusing on the process—be it the alignment of Annie’s spine while approaching a jump or my cognitive cogs turning during a test—reduces literal and figurative obstacles to speed bumps that simply offer feedback on my progress.
While barn soil has nurtured me for eleven years, my roots are loosening because I know that I cannot replicate my relationship with Annie without Virginia dirt and because my continued growth depends upon uprooting. Recently, after a customarily frantic costume change in the car from (horse) show clothes to (choir) show clothes, I cantered into rehearsal with muddy pastures beneath my fingernails and the impression of my helmet still stamped across my forehead. The tang of fly spray leavened the scent of hay and my trainer’s chain-smoke, and as both the smells and Brahms’s Requiem dissipated throughout the National Cathedral, I mused that I should be more like the Cathedral acoustics, clarifying, beautifying, and amplifying the ideas incident upon me in class discussion. Suddenly, from the vantage point of the risers, riding looked like a science experiment that only exposed me, the subject, to a set of controlled stimuli. However, if I want to flourish, I need new influences to catalyze revelations like this one and to coax out dormant traits. If I am lucky enough to choose my new environment, I hope to be replanted at Yale.
Yale’s rich loam is replete with courses like Directed Studies, a singular opportunity to sink roots into the bedrock texts of Western civilization and prune my analytical skills. Sixtyone performing arts groups can plant new seeds in the hole that riding leaves. While coverage of current Rhodes scholars provides a drip-feed of inspiration, the Residential Colleges will plant me alongside one-of-a-kind sprouts and the Master’s Teas will introduce me to the mentors who cultivate Yaleus iscipulus. This species is my favorite because it itches to extend itself, like the ivy sprawling across the campus’s Gothic architecture. However, this breed’s defining characteristic is photosynthesis, its ability to reemit what it absorbs in a manner benefiting the entire greenhouse. Without riding, I will be laden with a surplus of passion that I can use to return the favor and replenish the soil.
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.