The Rise of the "Trauma Essay" in College Applications | Tina Yong | TED
Summary
TLDRThe speaker recounts their childhood immigration to Canada, facing racism, and their struggle to fit in. They criticize the pressure on high school students to write trauma-centered essays for college applications, arguing that this practice is harmful and perpetuates inequalities. The speaker calls for universities to be more transparent and supportive, suggesting a shift in essay prompts and better training for admissions counselors. Ultimately, they advocate for applicants to share their stories authentically and on their own terms, without feeling compelled to exploit their traumas for acceptance.
Takeaways
- 𧳠The speaker moved to Canada at a young age and faced racism and isolation in school due to her immigrant background.
- π She was teased for her language skills, appearance, and cultural differences, which made her feel like an outsider.
- π Through perseverance and involvement in extracurricular activities, she overcame her struggles and became a strong and employable individual.
- π The speaker has shared her story in various settings, including academic essays and job interviews, but has come to resent it.
- π The story has become a clichΓ© among immigrants applying to universities, often used to gain sympathy and acceptance.
- π The pressure on high school students to write about their deepest traumas in college applications is highlighted as a societal issue.
- π€ The speaker questions the ethics of using personal trauma as a metric for evaluating applicants and its potential harm to the storyteller.
- π¬ Admissions counselors and university blogs often encourage applicants to write personal and emotional essays, which may amplify this pressure.
- π The speaker discusses the disparity in the types of essays submitted by different racial groups, pointing out systemic biases.
- π Writing about trauma for a college application can be emotionally taxing and may not be therapeutic or helpful for processing the experience.
- π The 'trauma essay' may oversimplify complex experiences and force applicants to sanitize their pain to fit a marketable narrative.
- π« Universities may inadvertently encourage the trauma essay by not clearly discouraging it and by perpetuating the myth that such essays are beneficial.
- π The speaker suggests that universities should be more transparent about their admissions criteria and restructure prompts to focus on future goals rather than past hardships.
- π The essay concludes with a call for applicants to recognize their worth beyond their traumas and for universities to create an environment where diverse stories can be told authentically.
Q & A
What was the speaker's experience when they moved to Canada at the age of 10?
-The speaker was the only Asian kid in their grade and faced teasing for their broken English, Asian features, and ethnic lunches. They experienced significant racism.
How did the speaker describe their transformation after facing challenges in school?
-Through extracurricular activities and perseverance, the speaker became a new person who was healthy, healed, and extremely employable.
Why does the speaker hate the story they have told multiple times about their immigrant experience?
-The speaker hates the story because it is overused and exploited by immigrant kids to gain admission to prestigious universities, often at the cost of their emotional well-being.
What is the moral of the stories told by immigrant kids to universities?
-The moral is that a bad thing happened to them, but it made them a good person, emphasizing resilience and personal growth.
What pressure is being put on high school students in their college applications?
-High school students are pressured to write about their deepest traumas in their college applications to appear resilient and interesting.
How do admissions counselors influence what applicants decide to write about in their essays?
-Admissions counselors often amplify the pressure by suggesting that personal and emotional stories, including painful memories, make a stronger impression.
What is the issue with using a college application essay to discuss one's trauma?
-Discussing trauma in an application essay doesn't help with processing the trauma and can be emotionally taxing, especially for young applicants.
Why is the assumption that trauma always leads to learning and growth problematic?
-This assumption ignores the reality that sometimes trauma is just a painful experience without clear learning outcomes, and it can lead to a toxic positivity narrative.
What is the fundamental contradiction in the trauma essay according to the speaker?
-The trauma essay appears to allow for vulnerability but actually restricts it, requiring the writer to sanitize their pain to fit a marketable and strategic narrative.
What are some ways universities can address the issue of trauma essays in admissions?
-Universities can be more transparent about their admissions guidelines, restructure their prompts to focus on future goals and academic interests, and train admissions counselors to be trauma-informed.
What advice does the speaker give to students applying to postsecondary institutions?
-The speaker advises students to remember that they are more than the bad things that happened to them and to find their voice to tell their story on their own terms.
Outlines
π The Struggle of Immigrant Identity
The speaker recounts her personal journey as a 10-year-old immigrant to Canada, facing racism and isolation due to her Asian heritage. Despite overcoming these challenges through perseverance and extracurricular activities, she expresses disdain for the narrative that such adversity necessarily leads to personal growth. She criticizes the expectation that students, particularly immigrants, must recount their deepest traumas in college applications to appear resilient and interesting. This pressure, she argues, is not only harmful but also reinforces existing inequalities in higher education. She highlights the influence of admissions counselors and the problematic trend of using personal trauma as a metric for college admission.
π The Emotional Burden of Trauma Essays
The speaker delves into the emotional toll of writing about personal trauma in college applications. She describes the process as difficult and emotionally taxing, particularly for young applicants who may not have fully processed their experiences. The expectation to transform pain into progress is critiqued as problematic, ignoring the reality that some experiences are simply painful without clear lessons or growth. The speaker also discusses how the trauma essay can shape one's perception of their own experiences, often requiring them to sanitize their pain to fit a narrative of triumph over adversity. She argues that this approach limits genuine vulnerability and perpetuates a false narrative of overcoming systemic challenges.
ποΈ Universities and the Trauma Essay Phenomenon
The speaker addresses the role of universities in perpetuating the trauma essay trend, suggesting that their ambiguous stance on the matter indirectly encourages students to share their traumas. She proposes that universities can take steps to mitigate this, such as being transparent about their admissions guidelines and restructuring essay prompts to focus on future goals and academic interests rather than past hardships. Additionally, she calls for admissions counselors to be trained in trauma-informed practices, particularly in working with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). The speaker emphasizes the importance of allowing students to define their own narratives, beyond the constraints of their traumatic experiences.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Immigrant
π‘Racism
π‘Trauma
π‘College Applications
π‘Resilience
π‘Tokenization
π‘Admissions Counselors
π‘Toxic Positivity
π‘Cultural Assimilation
π‘Systemic Inequities
π‘Narrative Control
Highlights
The speaker shares a personal story of immigrating to Canada at age 10 and facing racism and bullying.
The speaker highlights the pressure on high school students to write about their deepest traumas in college applications.
The speaker criticizes the use of trauma essays as a metric for evaluating applicants, arguing it is harmful to the storytellers and reinforces inequities.
Examples from admissions blogs and websites illustrate the encouragement for students to include painful memories in their essays.
Confessions from admissions officers reveal a disparity in the type of personal statements written by students from different racial backgrounds.
The speaker describes the emotional labor and psychological burden of writing about trauma for college applications.
The speaker argues that writing about trauma doesn't necessarily help students process their experiences.
The speaker critiques the expectation that students must turn their pain into progress in their essays.
The speaker emphasizes that trauma essays often sanitize and market pain to fit a palatable narrative.
The speaker discusses the contradiction in trauma essays, which seem to allow vulnerability but actually limit it.
Universities are indirectly enabling the rise of trauma essays by not clearly discouraging them.
The speaker suggests universities should be more transparent about their admissions guidelines and avoid prompts that pressure students to discuss hardships.
Admissions counselors should be trauma-informed and trained in working with BIPOC students.
The speaker encourages students to recognize their worth beyond their traumatic experiences and find their own voice.
The speaker reflects on what they might write about if given the chance to apply again, emphasizing ownership of one's story.
Transcripts
There's a story of mine that I've told about a million different times,
and it goes a little something like this.
When I was 10, my family and I packed up our entire lives into large suitcases
and dragged them across the Pacific to a foreign land called Canada.
I was put in a school where I was the only Asian kid in my grade,
and I got teased for my broken English, Asian features
and funny smelling ethnic lunches.
The racism was a real doozy.
But don't feel bad.
Through the magical healing powers of extracurricular activities
and pure perseverance,
I stand before you today, a new woman:
healthy, healed and extremely employable.
You wouldn't even be able to tell from just looking at me
that I was once the weird little immigrant girl
who begged her mom to pack PB&J sandwiches
so she wouldn't have to eat lunch alone in the bathroom.
This is a story that Iβve told in academic essays, job interviews
and even in the very application that got me into this fine university.
It's also a story that, despite all of its truth,
I've come to hate.
Now this is a story that I don't have copyright claim over.
It's one that continues to be regurgitated by immigrant kids
all across the country
to be served on a silver platter to prestigious universities
who chew these stories and spit out acceptance letters in return.
The contents of the story may change.
Instead of a difficult immigration experience,
it might be the death of a loved one, a chronic illness or a racist encounter.
But what remains constant is the moral:
A bad thing happened to me, but it made me a good person.
This is part of a larger phenomenon that I'm here to talk about today.
The overwhelming pressure being put on high school students
to write about their deepest traumas in their college applications
with the hopes that they seem resilient and interesting enough to be given a spot.
I believe that these are not only bad metrics
by which to evaluate applicants,
but also incredibly harmful to the storyteller themselves
and risks reinforcing existing inequities in higher education.
There's also pressure that's being amplified
by admissions counselors themselves
who play a huge role in influencing what applicants decide to write about.
Take, for example, this tip from the MIT admissions blog,
where the author compares two different introductions for a potential essay.
The first one reads:
"I'm honored to apply for the Master of Library Science program
at the University of Okoboji.
For as long as I can remember, I've had a love affair with books.
Since I was 11, I've wanted to be a librarian."
The second introduction reads:
"When I was 11,
my great aunt Gretchen passed away
and left me something that changed my life:
a library of about 5000 books.
Some of my best days were spent arranging and reading her books.
Since then, I've wanted to become a librarian."
The author notes that the second introduction
is much more striking and leaves a much better impression.
Consider another tip from collegeessayguy.com,
where he advises students to βget personal.β
He says, "Weirdly, including painful memories
and what you learned from them
usually helps a personal statement
meet the goals of a college application essay.
You come off as humble, accessible, likable and mature.β
Confessions from admissions officers themselves can also be telling.
Aya Waller-Bey, a former admissions officer
from Georgetown University,
said in a "Forbes" article that,
"Within months on the job, I saw how the personal statements
of Black and other racially minoritized students
differed from those of white applicants.
Black students highlighted resilience through stories of survival,
while their counterparts wrote casual essays about service abroad
and sporting championships.
Black students shared their pain,
white students shared their passions.β
Now, lastly, and perhaps the least reliable source is my own life.
I remember feeling this way when I was applying to universities.
Like I had no other choice, no other experiences worthy of mentioning
and no other merit beyond the fact
that I had thrived despite what I had gone through.
I even remember worrying that my tale wouldn't be harrowing enough
after hearing from a counselor
that writing about immigration has become a bit of a cliche
because of how overused it is.
So whatβs the universitiesβ role in all of this
and why are these stories even harmful to begin with?
Well, I believe that using your college application essay
to discuss your trauma
actually doesn't help you process it.
And there are a couple different reasons why.
First, writing about a difficult experience is,
as you may have guessed, difficult.
Not only do you have to relive the event itself,
but you also have to actively suppress any negative emotions
that arise during the process.
That kind of emotional labor can be taxing for anybody,
but perhaps especially so
for these young applicants who haven't had enough time on this world
to process the terrible things that have happened to them.
For that space to be one in which they're confessing to a faceless stranger
who gets to make the most consequential decision
of their adolescent life
imposes an incredibly heavy psychological burden.
I mean, imagine if you walked into your therapy appointment
and your therapist tells you
that they're not going to respond to anything you tell them
except with a rejection or acceptance email sent months later.
And also that whatever you tell them
will determine the trajectory of your entire academic and professional career.
Hard to imagine that being therapeutic.
Secondly, the trauma essay makes one assumption
that is extremely problematic.
It's not always the learning opportunity
through which you can gain more confidence or develop better time management skills.
Sometimes it's just a sucky thing that really sucks.
And asking students to prove how they turn their pain into progress
ignores this truth and falls prey to the toxic positivity narrative
that everything happens for a reason,
ignoring the very valid resentment and anger that many victims still feel.
Lastly, the things we write aren't just informed by our experiences,
they shape how we view those experiences as well.
And if we're writing about our trauma to prove to an admissions officer
that we are worthy of a decent education,
then it becomes necessary to sanitize our pain,
to make it marketable and strategic,
to scrub away all the suffering,
so all that's left is what will fit
into the narrow margins of what is palatable.
And this is what I see as being the fundamental contradiction
at the heart of the trauma essay.
It seems to give the writer free reign on vulnerability,
but actually leaves them very little room to be vulnerable.
Your story has to be just sad enough that it gains sympathy,
but not so sad that it makes you seem beyond help.
Just critical enough to inspire change,
but not so much that it actually criticizes systemic structures.
Just honest enough to seem real,
but not so unfiltered that it creates discomfort.
The protagonist also overcomes whatever struggle they're facing
by the end of the 500 word count,
instilling the reader with a sense of optimism
that despite our deeply unequal society,
it is possible to rise through the ranks and overcome all the β-isms.β
This, of course, is not the reality of our world today.
And for me, this looked like settling
for the familiar story of the stinky lunch,
one that's been told so many times that it's devoid of any real meaning,
instead of talking
about the ongoing social and political disenfranchisement of immigrants,
the permanent loss of cultural identity that I suffered,
or the sense of disbelonging that still haunts me
every time I make a grammar mistake or someone mispronounces my name.
These are all struggles that never really go away,
but are carefully tucked away in my essay
because they don't fit the linear narrative
that is being constructed.
But how are universities to blame for all of this?
I mean, they never explicitly asked students
to trauma-dump in their essays,
and many admissions experts have actually come out
and discouraged discussing explicit trauma in essays.
However, I still don't think that universities are blameless.
The reason why the trauma essay is so ubiquitous
is because it seems to be working.
Anne Trubek, who helped low-income high school students at Oberlin College
write their essays,
expresses the ethical dilemma that she faces.
"By pushing students to reveal their horror stories,
I risk taking away their dignity,
but by not pushing, I could be hindering their chances
of getting into their dream school."
Whether trauma essays and acceptance letters
are actually causally correlated
is impossible to tell from the outside.
So this could all just be speculation and myth.
But in failing to resolutely clear up these speculations and myths
about whether trauma essays are rewarded or discouraged,
universities are indirectly enabling the rise of the trauma essay
and all of its harmful implications.
So what are they to do about all of this?
Well, first of all, I think that this is a problem that goes much deeper
than individual universities,
and even perhaps the institution of higher education itself.
It's rooted in the cultural obsession with appropriating trauma
and making it consumable,
as well as the systemic tendency
to tokenize oppressed people and their experiences.
But there are still things
that universities can do to make things better.
First, they can be more transparent about their admissions guidelines.
If it's really true that they don't want to reward trauma storytelling
just for the sake of it,
then they should be more forthcoming about this expectation.
They could also restructure their prompts
to avoid putting pressure on students
to talk about past hardships and adversities
and instead refocus prompts
to ask students about their goals for the future
and their academic interests.
Secondly, admissions counselors should be trauma-informed
and trained in working with BIPOC folk.
As the unofficial gatekeepers
to the secrets of getting into your dream college,
they should wield their power responsibly
and not pressure students to talk about traumatic experiences
that they're not yet ready to talk about.
Lastly -- and this one's for anyone who's actually applying
to a postsecondary institution sometime soon --
remember that you are more than the bad things that happened to you.
I know that when it seems like every other classmate of yours
is writing an essay that could be adapted for an HBO original drama,
that you may feel like your experiences are not worth talking about.
But I promise that they are.
You just have to find your voice and use it.
Now as much as I don't want to live
that nail-bitingly stressful time of my life ever again,
I can't help but wonder:
what would I have written about
if I got the chance to apply to UBC again?
This time absent the pressure
to strategically use my immigrant background
to gain sympathy points.
Maybe I would have written about how I overcame my fear of public speaking
and became comfortable with being the loudest voice in the room.
Or I could have written about watching trashy reality television
is what first sparked my interest in political science.
Or maybe I still would have written about my immigrant story
because that was a big part of my life journey
and still impacts me to this day.
But I would have done it on my own terms.
Instead of being written as a one-dimensional,
trauma-turned-triumph trauma drama,
I would have been able to tell a story that actually reflects who I am today
and acknowledge the fact that my journey is ongoing
and it doesn't begin or end with my racial identity.
This is the kind of ownership
that I wish for everyone to one day have over their story.
And now it's up for universities to decide whether they get to tell it.
Thank you.
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