Guide to Community, Identity, and Diversity College Essays Sarah O'Neill Chester County

 Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing

What communities are you a part of?

Example Prompts

At Amherst we know that identity is more than checkboxes. If you would like to share more about your identity, background, family, culture or community, please tell us more here. –Amherst College

Sarah Lawrence College’s community places strong value in inclusion and
diversity. In 250–500 words, tell us about what you value in a community and how your perspective, lived experiences, or beliefs might contribute to your College community. –Sarah Lawrence College

What They’re Actually Asking

● What makes you unique?
● How are you influenced by your background, identity, community, or heritage?
● Will you contribute to our school’s community if you get accepted into our college? In what way?
● Our college values diversity: will you accept/encourage diversity in our school’s community if you get accepted into our college? In what way?

Example Essay

Growing up in a traditional Chinese family, I never thought I would compose a rap song and perform it on my school stage. I had always been taught to accept a conventional notion of youth: deference must be paid to the collective beliefs that stretch into the interminable past. The weight of societal pressure was difficult to bear and even more difficult to upend. And so, in clichéd fashion, I did what my peers before me had done, what those who come after me will likely do: conform. I was dutiful,
reserved, and obedient. In my mind, difference was something to dispel, not something to aspire to.

After accepting conformity as a virtue, it was, to say the least, astonishing to encounter as overt a spectacle of individual expression as hip hop. How else can one describe The Rap of China, a reality television program that appeared the summer before I started high school? The sight and sound of artists blatantly celebrating themselves mesmerized as much as it horrified me. The theme of their artistry was plain: authority should be questioned, received opinion challenged, personal limitations exceeded. At my formative age, this message was transformational. Consuming one
song after the next performed by global rappers, I internalized an attitude of self-reliance. Free to imagine, I began to ask myself the big question: what do I really want in life?

The effects of this new outlook were almost immediate. Before hop, I assigned little importance to my appearance. I dressed to blend in. But after I was introduced to this genre, I grew my hair long. Because I wanted my exterior to reflect my changing attitude to life, I began to wear colorful clothing. More importantly, I began to place personal ambition ahead of social expectations. For example, as a freshman, I dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player. Invigorated by my newfound self-belief, I rose before sunrise each day to practice. For the first time, I felt that I had
taken control of my life. That was when I performed my first original rap song 3 years ago.

However, as I continued to focus increasingly on myself, this previous
relationship between self and society almost inverted. Numbness and hollowness grew within me as I stopped being attentive to my community. I seemed to have lost the empathy that was always deeply embedded within me. I felt like my childhood ambition of changing the world was slipping away. Returning to hip hop’s message, a deeper lesson struck me amidst the confusion. Individuality is worth celebrating, but individuality only means something within a community. It is important to love oneself, but love also needs to be extended in order to prosper. This realization prompted me to balance my personal aspiration with social responsibility. I began to understand that helping others through my own success would
provide the most meaningful life. With each new project — such as organizing a global hackathon, publishing research on processing COVID-19 chest X-ray images with AI, and leading a service program that teaches underprivileged children coding — my goals became clearer. As I began to take on leadership roles, I applied my growing technical skills to make the world better, a little bit at a time. With my growing confidence, I firmly
believe that I can truly make a difference. After this long journey, the world feels familiar once again.

Hip hop continues to symbolize my conviction that a meaningful life emerges when you harness your passion to improve yourself and the world. Now, more than ever, I possess a clear sense of purpose and an ambitious vision for the future. As I chatted with the journalist from Forbes after winning Apple’s WWDC global coding competition, my heart tells me that my journey has just begun. Looking back, it is ironic that a musical genre exclusively performed by youth helped me grow and mature.

What Should I Write About?

What is an identity?
An identity is a personal background, history, interest or community that is so important to you that you consider it part of who you are as a person.
For example, someone who knows a few songs on the guitar may not consider the guitar part of their identity, but someone who practices the guitar for an hour a day probably considers themselves to have an identity as a musician. Everyone holds multiple identities, of many different kinds and of differing levels of importance. An identity can also be closely tied to a community you’re a part of (which is why these prompts often ask about communities as well as identities.) For example, a Jewish student might want to talk about their religious identity in the context of their local religious community.

Some possible communities

- family
- neighborhood
- town, city or country
- ethnic, racial, or cultural group
- religion or religious group
- club or interest group
- the LGBTQIA+ community

Consider identities / communities that aren’t elsewhere in your application.
This is a great opportunity to discuss a community that might not be on your Activities list or your report card. It’s totally OK to talk about your drama club or your fencing team if that’s important to you, and if you have something to say about them that you haven’t said elsewhere.
However, if you’d like to talk about what it was like growing up on a farm, converting to Buddhism or connecting with your Italian relatives, this is the place to do so.

Brainstorming

1. List 10 or more of your identities. If you get really stuck — ask a friend for
help.

- saxophonist
- citizen scientist
- Latino
- non-binary
- agnostic
- urbanite / city-dweller
- punk
- songwriter
- jack-of-all-trades
- true crime fanatic

2. How has your community or identity shaped how you are today?

punk

- awakened my interest in DIY culture, fashion, music and art
- helped me make friends in my local community
- led me to learn the bass
- influenced my views on politics and artistic activism

Example Outline

Part 1: What is the identity or community you want to discuss in this essay? Why is it important to you? When I first started at Landon there were few Chinese students and the community did not know much about China’s history and culture. Throughout my life, I have always been a part of many Chinese communities. The culture, ideas and customs have shaped who I am and what I believe. I have been attracted to China’s rich history and unique culture. Because of my school’s lack of knowledge and understanding about Chinese elements, I decided to take the
responsibility of sharing my knowledge about China.

Part 2: How has your experience as part of this community shaped your actions or beliefs? In leading the school’s Chinese Club as the president, I have organized different activities including the weekly club meeting, the Taste of Landon Chinese food festival, and have introduced the importance of Chinese festivals to the whole school. The number of people at school participating in these activities has increased rapidly. The biggest event that my Chinese teacher and I have held on campus is the China Roundtable during Spring Festival — the biggest Chinese traditional
holiday. This is a joint exchange program between our school and schools in three cities in China. The exchange students come to Landon for learning and experiencing, and participate in traditional Chinese performances which reveal our unique culture and values. During their visit, I helped them communicate with my classmates and introduced them to different teachers to provide them with the opportunity to experience Landon. On the day of China Roundtable, we decorated the meeting space with Chinese symbols and characters, the exchange students from China and students who study Chinese at Landon sang Chinese songs together, and a local Kung Fu club performed a lion dance. The number of participants exceeded our expectations and was a great success. Many teachers and classmates shared their appreciation for the event and their strong interest in Chinese culture after the event.

Part 3: How will your experiences with identity, diversity or culture enrich this college’s community? This example doesn’t go into much detail, but if you’d like to say more — for example, if you have plans to start a new cultural club at your school, or join an existing one — mention that!

Culture is the foundation of the society, it’s the continuous exchange of
culture that builds up the diversity and communication between people from different nations with different backgrounds. It is a great honor for me to share my country’s culture in another country, which I look forward to continuing at UC.

Thank you for reading!

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Teacher Supreme Editing Coatesville