Common Application Essay Sample Admitted to Brown University

 Sarah O’Neill, Supreme Editing, Coatesville

The walls dripped with the sweat of an early September sun as I reached the cafeteria, where I squeezed in with the usual gaggle of students for sloppy Joes. My stomach growling, I formed a line near the entrance among wide-eyed freshmen, stifled sophomores, and weary juniors (me). Then, by some magnetic force, the seniors were compelled to the front of the line, brushing us aside. There must’ve been something in the air that day — maybe the faint scent of tomato, or perhaps the exhaustion of analyzing the rhetoric in 1984 for an hour right before — but I found myself shifting forward, trying to block their intrusion. That was the first time I had ever publicly stood up and broke the norm at my school.

Growing up in a Chinese household, my childhood was steeped with tradition. From the tangzhuang my brother and I wore to New Year’s, to the hong bao (red envelopes stuffed with money) that we received from relatives, almost everything seemed to have some special custom attached to it. As a child, they were just that. Customs. Convention. I didn’t think much of them, just like how I didn’t think much of school traditions my freshman year at a new boarding school. It was just how things were done, and if it meant getting red envelopes, I was more than willing to oblige.

However, as I grew older, I began to reevaluate traditions. I started to question them more when I became a teenager, when I began to see these customs as chores, tedious tasks I needed to do for seemingly no reason. I began to search for meaning in these traditions during morning walks with my grandpa. As we talked, I learned so much about my culture, such as how the Chinese beliefs of harmony and filial piety are reflected in our traditions. I learned that hong bao were given as a sign of good luck, which I now see as a representation of the wisdom our elders impart on us. Through my own introspection and discussions with family, I found my own meaning for traditions — as ways that we stay connected with our communities.

Coming to Salisbury School four years ago, life had seemed so alien that I instinctively clung to the rules, reasonable or not. Between supervised study hall and towering seniors, I was, quite frankly, intimidated. However, as the years passed, those rules no longer felt unshakable. Just as I had questioned my own traditions at home, I began to examine these foreign traditions as well. Did the seniors really get an exclusive stairway to the main building? Why were seniors entitled to extra rights? That afternoon in the lunch line was the first time I publicly confronted a custom, as fruitless as it was. It meant something, even if it didn’t to the seniors who walked by regardless — it meant something to me.

While living at a boarding school, stuck half a world away from family during the pandemic, I finally realized that the reason why seniors were given special rights was the same reason why elders were given respect in Chinese culture, as reciprocity for imparting their wisdom to those less experienced than them.

From this hunger-driven outburst, I now have made a resolution. I will never merely accept every rule just because of ‘tradition,’ whether it is good or bad. Instead, I will look deeper at my own beliefs to find meaning in what I do, and how I do it. As a senior this fall, I have come to my own understanding of my privileges and my responsibilities — if we seniors are to have these rights, we should earn them. We should use our experiences to support and advise our younger peers. After all, it is through our shared traditions that we can come together, and if we seniors remember our roles in our community, perhaps everyone can get lunch a little sooner too.

Sarah ONeill Supreme Editing Coatesville