Look, there’s no easy way to say this.
There’s a big elephant in the room –it was there the moment you opened this article. Want to know its name?
Racism. Its name is racism.
That’s right. It’s on your mind, it’s on your parents’ mind, and it’s on my mind. Want to know what’s crazy?
I’ve worked with Asian-American students struggling to stand out in their college admissions essays since the dinosaurs. Well, not really. I started working with people on their college admissions when I left my job working in test prep. Nonetheless, the same white elephant in the room that is racism always loomed over both my clients and me. Let’s face it:
If you’re applying to college as an Asian person, you will have a harder time getting accepted.
By the time you’re reading this article, though, you must have figured out the “loophole”.
“If I write a good college essay about being Asian, I”might” be able to negate the negative effects of affirmative action rules that work against me. If my essay is good enough, I can probably turn the tides and make my Asianness work in my favor!
–You, probably.
Look at you! You’re so smart! That’s why you should never be allowed into university…
We’re kidding! We’re kidding.
But seriously: if you thought you can write a college essay about being Asian as a way of sneaking past the affirmative action rules, you’re right… sort of. You can write your college essay about being Asian, but there are very important rules you must follow.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to write your college essay about being Asian. I’m basing this advice on the previous years of experience I had helping Asian students –both American and international– get accepted into competitive schools like UCSD, UCLA, and BU.
Table of Contents
How to Write Your College Essay About Being Asian
How To Stand Out Amongst Everyone Else.
This is going to be one of the most difficult parts of writing your college essay about being Asian.
When writing your essay, keep in mind that you’ll be competing with a million other students who are also writing about their Asian culture. Not only will you be writing to compete against the rest, but also to impress the admissions officers in the wake of affirmative action.
This won’t be easy. Especially because it means you’ll need a stronger essay than what is normally accepted.
Here are a few things you can do to stand out when writing your college essay about being Asian.
- Get into detail about your experience as an Asian person. That includes not just the surface level (example: food, culture, clothing), but also the way it felt (how delicious Asian food can be used as a manipulative tactic in abusive households)
- The struggles that Asian people, particularly you, go through that many others may not comprehend.
- Demonstrate the relevance being Asian has on your identity. I.e. why is it even important?
- Make a strong introduction to your essay. We provided a tutorial on this here.
- Use unique diction to describe the details of your experience as an Asian person.
Make sure you have these elements in your essay. With that said, let’s deconstruct and elaborate on number 1 in the next section below.
Writing Your College Essay About Being Asian: Get More In Detail
Make sure to write your college essay about being Asian with deeper details on your Asian background. Let’s take the example demonstrated in the first item of the list.
“As an Asian-American student, I found the good food that comes with Asian cooking an integral part of my life. It is very well-connected to everyting that happens in the Asian household. This part of my culture also makes up a part of my identity. I would love to share this identity with the rest of my fellow peers at Stanford University. “
Bad example of details in the application essay.
Notice how this example doesn’t really get into detail about how exactly food in Asian culture is so deeply connected with everyday life? We can understand what the applicant is talking about from a surface level, but we can’t understand more without the applicant writing more in-depth content. That means you’ll need to get your fingers dirty with direct examples and strong imagery. Let the admissions officers use their imagination to visualize what your life is like!
Let’s see this in action in another example.
“As an Asian-American student, food intertwines with every aspect of my life. That’s not to say that I’m consuming 12,000 calories a day; rather, I live a life where food’s presence has dug its heels into practically everything.
During late-night study sessions, it is customary for my fellow Asian-American students and I to run to the local Quickly boba shop for a mix of popcorn chicken and boba drinks. Of course, the focus of these late-night sessions were to focus solely on our midterms and finals. However, our tests quickly became associated with the crunchy chicken bites and sweet, cold boba drinks.
It was strange, but also surreal in some ways to see my diverse group of friends all gathered together to work on their own projects and assignments.
Jessica Vu. Volunteer for the local animal shelter and president of the Future Business Leaders of America. Drink of choice: matcha smoothie with boba.
Andrew Wang: Member of the varsity tennis team. My best friend since orchestra, and with whom I share inside jokes with during cello rehearsals. Drink of choice: regular boba milk tea. Classy.
Ethan Nguyen: Changed his major from computer science to history. Parents are mad. Super mad. Drink of choice: chrysanthemum tea with lychee jelly.
We all had our own tastes, and we all had our own academic backgrounds complete with unique experiences. Yet, in some strange cosmological way, we all bonded over the same thing: a sugary drink with tapioca toppings swirling around in the bottom. These drinks were there for us during all of our struggles. It sat through Jessica’s presentation edits for her FBLA meetings, it made cello rehearsals a little sweeter for Andrew, and it helped Ethan make studying history more bearable with his parents’ pressuring him to switch majors back into comp sci.
For me, it was there through it all. My Jasmine green tea with half sugar, half ice, and rainbow jelly: it sat through many late night hours with my study friends, watching me scowl at a screen as I had to –continually over the span of weeks– reorient my software development startup from the ground up.”
Good example of details in the application essay.
The difference between the first and second examples is that the second example dives much deeper in-depth into the influence and effects of Asian food in the applicant’s life. We can see how the applicant doesn’t just talk about Asian food in general. They get specific and talk about the types of food such as boba and popcorn chicken that so often compliments Asian American youths.
Think about a time when your Asian culture specifically had a special place in your heart. This doesn’t have to be something positive. You can shed light on the negatives that people often don’t see in Asian culture. For instance, you can get into detail about how the brutal academic Japanese culture had carved into your social life and pathologized your relationship with friends and family.
Writing The Equality and Equity Narrative In Your Favour.
The threat of affirmative action looms over the heads of both White and Asian students.
This article isn’t going to make assertions on the morality of admissions policies; however, we are going to address the equality and equity problem. More importantly, what you can do about it as an Asian applicant.
The nature of college admissions is aimed to give disadvantaged students the opportunity to build up their careers. You can think of this as the equality and equity narrative: the overarching goal of admissions officers to “equalize” the playing field by making “advantaged Asians” a lower priority.
The overarching narrative is that Asian students are more advantaged than other applicants because of their cultural emphasis on academics and financial advantages. This, of course, paints the Asian community with very broad brushstrokes. It misses all the specific disadvantages that come with being Asian.
To have an advantage, you need to write about how your background as an Asian college applicant helps the equality and equity narrative.
Here are a few examples:
- Your Asian background made being an artist difficult, as there was too much pressure to become an engineer.
- You want to apply to a unqiue, diverse college because you were deprived of that creative expression in a conservative Asian household.
- You don’t fit the Asian stereotype, and that’s exactly why you should be in the college you’re applying for.
- Your Asian background was a disadvantage because, unlike the other wealthy Asian students, you grew up in a less stable and financially struggling household.
- Asian culture made mental health difficult for you. You were disadvantaged because you didn’t have the support system other cultures had.
When admissions officers say they want to provide more advantages to struggling students, they really mean it.
The Asian community is rife with struggle and hardship; so, it’s important that you talk about those hardships. Asian women are often taken less seriously, as they are assumed to be ‘demure’ and ‘submissive’. You can take a pro-feminist approach with this.
Asian men are often emasculated in the media. This is a reality very few people are likely to want to talk about. Both people on the left and right sides of the political spectrum have looked upon Asian masculinity with disdain. You may discuss how lonely it truly is to walk the road of discovering your positive masculinity as an Asian male in the wake of social and gender warfare.
Whichever topic you choose, make sure to show the admissions officers that your Asian identity and background put you in a disadvantaged place. Or, show that your Asian identity and background makes you someone who can be a friend of the equality and equity narrative.
Demonstrating Worth and Value As An Asset.
One of the last, but perhaps most important parts, of writing your college essay about being Asian is showing your worth and value as an asset.
We emphasize the importance of this position practically all the time. It’s something that people forget in application essays all the time. They are so focused on talking about themselves and the topic that they forget the admissions essay writing process is also a screening process. There’s nothing wrong with writing about yourself and letting your personality shine through the admissions essays, that’s good!
However, you need to remember that the admissions essays are there to serve as a tool for the admissions officers. You aren’t trying to trick anyone, and you’re not trying to manipulate anyone. By writing your college essay about being Asian, you’re giving your college admissions officers a strong tool to better screen you and your value as an applicant. Thus, you are working with your admissions officers, not against them.
Think of your essay as an appraisal tool. It gives the admissions officers a deeper dive into you as a person as well as your value as a candidate to the school. The admissions office can further see your value and the ROI that comes with investing time and money to educate you.
Therefore, you need to write your college essay about being Asian in a way that shows how you are worth accepting. You can do this by both insinuating the value of having you as well as the negatives that come with rejecting you.
Here’s an example: you are someone who grew up in an upper-middle-class community of Asian American students. There was not a lot of emphasis on Asian culture, and there was too much pressure to succeed academically. Thus, you started an Asian American cultural identity club that brought together Asian communities in celebration of its rich culture.
This topic would insinuate that the people who read this topic would have something to gain. By accepting the student who writes about this topic, they will have a chance of revivifying the Asian culture and identity in their school. By rejecting them, the school runs the risk of losing out on someone who can shed light on Asian culture.
Think about how you, as an Asian applicant, can provide value to the community of the school you’re in. Often, this will intersect with our previous point about adding to the equality and equity narrative. Equality and equity is often focused on Hispanic and Black communities. This leaves a great untapped well of opportunity for Asian inclusion which you may want to capitalize on in your essay.
If you are still struggling to write your college essay about being Asian, consider scheduling a free consultation. We can get back to you within 24 hours for a free essay review and advising session.
