Guide to Meaningful Dialogue College Admissions Essays Sarah O'Neill Chester County Teacher Supreme Editing

Guide to Meaningful Dialogue Essays

Tell us about a meaningful conversation.

Example Prompts

Brown’s culture fosters a community in which students challenge the ideas of

others and have their ideas challenged in return, promoting a deeper and clearer

understanding of the complex issues confronting society. This active

engagement in dialogue is as present outside the classroom as it is in academic

spaces. Tell us about a time you were challenged by a perspective that differed

from your own. How did you respond? —Brown University

At Boston College, we hope to draw on the Jesuit tradition of finding

conversation partners to discuss issues and problems facing society. Who is

your favorite conversation partner? What do you discuss with that person?

—Boston College

Tell us about a time when, faced with an opinion or perspective that differed from

your own, you responded as an empathetic speaker or generous listener.—UVA

What They’re Actually Asking

● What are your values?

● How do you deal with disagreements or conflict?

● Are you open to new or challenging ideas?

● Are you a good fit for a college environment, where you will be expected to

respectfully discuss complex or controversial topics?

Example Essay

Ready to go, I squeeze into the truck packed with research supplies and three

lab partners including Yashenjiang headed to Daliyabuyi, a Xinjiang village. It would be

a two-day drive through the largest desert in China, second only to the Sahara. Within

an hour, we pass gas stations fortified with barbed wire, cast iron fences, and

checkpoints spiked with metal roadblocks.

Just over the border, we slow to a tollgate, and I reach into my pocket for my

phone – Yasenjiang quickly grabs my wrist, “Don’t take that out. It’s a checkpoint.”

That’s when a helmeted policeman holding a shotgun asks us to lower our window. He

asks questions in Uyghur in which the only Uyghur in the car, Yashenjiang, obediently

replies. As we head south, there are more checkpoints and Yasenjiang is pulled in and

out of the car constantly, even going through a giant X-ray machine.

In our program are Han ethnics like me, so PhD candidate Yasenjiang, stands

out. His skin is a shade lighter; his nose rises high, his dark hair has curls, and he has a

distinct accent. I have lived in China all my life, and Yasenjiang is the first Uyghur I

knew. To most Hans in China, Uyghurs are simply different. Anthropologically, they’re

more closely related to the Turks than to Chinese and left on their own outside of

dynasties. Unlike the majority, Uyghurs use a language of a completely foreign origin,

unlike most, Uyghurs are Muslims. As I look at Yasenjiang, it’s hard to place him with

the Uyghurs whom I was told were aliases to terrorists who bombed Tiananmen Square.

After countless checkpoints, we arrive at stretch of unmanned desert to sleep. As

sunset fades, our engine whirrs alongside the monotonous dunes but we wake up to our

wheels spinning in the frictionless sand. It’s midnight with a good 80 km of desert

between us and the site. As if in tacit agreement we kneel to clear it out when I feel a

tap on my shoulder. “If you want you can take a break,” whispers Yasenjiang. In this

moment, I realize that he and I are not different – we’re just working together to get our

wheels out of the sand. In a country where every sentiment I make could get my family

into trouble, there’s nothing I can really say to him. I whisper back: “No, thanks, I’ll

handle this.”

In the coming days, I get to know more about him. In college, he stayed for the

first time in prosperous parts of inland which made him a fluent albeit heavily accented

Chinese-speaking Uyghur, and his stay was characterized by the documents he had to

carry with him at all times and police encounters wherever he went. He told me that

during tensions in 2013, his Han friends would escort him everywhere to avoid any

lashings.

On the contrary, I grew up in the northern suburbs of Beijing and went to a

competitive school. After finishing middle school one year early, I came to the US. From

a certain perspective, my life has been about going places intentionally, a simple luxury

Yasenjiang doesn’t have.

As he apostrophized about politics and how he felt about the Yang’s VAT, the

glow in his eyes definitely spoke the same curiosity and eagerness for the world I had

during my first days in America. In the “civilized world”, we were told not to like each

another. But in the desert, under the starlight, away from the pollution of the city, we

became brothers.

On the last night, in the sunset, we all sat in front of the site as Yasenjiang took

out a loudspeaker and played a Uyghur song. He started to dance. Not coordinated

myself, I didn’t even dance at proms, Yasenjiang gestured to me. As I mirrored his

movements, we spun around each other under the vast expanse of the desert sky.

What Should I Write About?

Focus on growth, learning and change.

If you’re writing about a conversation that went badly, it can be easy to write an entire

essay about your negative emotions. Though it’s definitely OK to write about anger or

frustration, don’t let it take over your entire essay. A good rule of thumb is: at least half

of your essay should be about the positive, constructive lessons you learned

from your experience.

Don’t write out the entire conversation.

“Hey,” I said to Carla, sitting down next to her in the school bleachers and

handing her a bag of chips.

“Hey,” Carla said back. “Have you done the reading for AP Psych yet?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Those twin studies are crazy. It’s weird to think that genetics can

determine so much of your life.”

Carla said, “I don’t think your genes are all that influential. After all, my brother

and I are pretty different people...”

Don’t get carried away with describing an entire conversation in detail. You can include

a few lines of dialogue (hint: these should be important lines of dialogue-- the most

memorable or relevant ones you can remember!) but summarize the rest.

Again, remember that you need to save a big chunk of your word count to write about

how you grew and changed from your experience.

Sitting on the bleachers during soccer practice, I paused halfway through a bite

of my granola bar. My best friend Carla had just said something extremely odd.

“What do you mean, you have a brother?” I asked. “Your mom told me you were

an only child.”

Carla winced. “It’s complicated,” she said. “Actually, my brother has been in

prison for the past five years.”

“Wait, seriously?” I asked. And Carla began to tell me a story. In 2018, her

brother had been traveling overseas...

Unlike the previous example, this example gets straight to the point, using two relevant

lines of dialogue and quickly moving into a summary from there.

Don’t talk about a pointless disagreement.

When my friend told me that she thought kimchi was gross, I knew that I was in

for the argument of a lifetime. Kimchi is delicious, dang it!

Your conversation doesn’t have to be a heated debate about current events, but it

should be about a legitimately relevant and important issue.

That said, a seemingly pointless or minor conversation might actually have some

relevance to a bigger issue in your life. If your argument about kimchi turned into a

longer conversation about how our taste in food is often influenced by cultural biases,

that could make for a great essay.

Brainstorming

1. List 5 meaningful conversations you’ve had with others. When have you

changed your mind, approached a difficult conversation topic, disagreed with

someone on an important topic, or learned about a different perspective?

● The time I talked to my friend about money and realizing that we come

from very different economic backgrounds—she doesn’t have to worry

about the same things my family does

● My experiences arguing against my debate club rival, learning to research

ahead of time in order to counter his arguments and develop my own

arguments more deeply

● My conversations with my older neighbor every week about her life and

history

● The time my friend shared her difficult past with me, and I reacted badly,

but then apologized and talked it out with her later

● My dad and I having conflicting opinions about what a “good career” is—

learning to respect his point of view while standing up for myself

2. Pick your favorite from these options. Write down all the details that you

remember from this conversation.

talking to my friend about money

● my friend Annie and I were talking while we were taking a day trip to

Myrtle Beach—she was driving and I was in the passenger seat

● very sunny day outside, we were blasting the air conditioning and we had

some 90s pop playing on the car radio

● we were talking about what we’d do after high school

● she mentioned taking a gap year in Europe before college, said “My

parents offered to pay for it” and seemed very casual about it. She didn’t

even seem to know how much it would cost to live in Barcelona for a year

without working, and she’s never had a job

● I’ve never received an allowance and I work a part-time job and summer

job to help my parents out—it used to be a lot worse but we still have a lot

of medical bills because of my dad’s condition, and our family meets

every month to talk about the household budget

● we talked about our respective sides of the issue, it was the first time she

seemed to realize that our situations were seriously different (my school is

in a rich neighborhood so most families in our area are like hers) It was a

casual conversation but I think about it all the time

● when we stopped to eat she tried to pay for both our meals (lol)

3. Consider what you learned from this experience.

This experience really put into perspective that it can be hard to notice someone

else’s financial situation—I’d known Annie for 4 years and she’d never thought

about why I might be working part-time after school, even though I’m always

very aware that my classmates’ families make more than I do.

I also realized that even though I won’t be able to take any all-expenses-paid

trips to Europe anytime soon, I’m happy that my parents raised me to be

financially literate. Though Annie had access to money, she didn’t actually know

that much about how to budget or save it. My parents have always

communicated with me honestly about money even when times were hard. This

experience made me very thankful for the responsibilities they’ve given me.

4. How will you use your newfound knowledge in the future?

I don’t want to blame Annie for not noticing that our situations are different.

Instead, I want to speak up more for myself and honestly share my own

experiences. I also want to keep in mind that I have my own blind spots and

might also be unable to tell when someone is in a very different situation than

mine.

Example Outline

Part 1: Introduce us to your scene. What were your emotions and beliefs before you

had this conversation? This particular example takes its time getting to the

“conversation” aspect of this essay, establishing setting details and giving us the

emotional context that will support the upcoming conversation.

The elegant legs of my synchronized swimming teammates lifted gracefully

above the water and spun in circles.

“Legs together!” “Extension!”

Watching poolside, I quickly scribbled the coaches’ feedback into my notebook.

Several weeks before, my doctor diagnosed me with Graves’ Disease, barring

me from swimming for two months. Distressed that this meant I would probably

never return to the pool, I asked my doctor about my chances of recovering. Her

answer - 50% - provided me with hope. Taking detailed notes was my way of

ensuring that my time out of the pool would not be a total waste. As the blank

sheets filled up, I noticed patterns in the comments and started using them to

provide suggestions to my teammates.

“Amy,” my coach said one day, “I’ve been noticing the great feedback you’ve

been giving your teammates. None of the coaches can be around this Sunday –

what do you think about running practice for one of the younger teams?” My

eyes nearly jumped out of my sockets. Me? Coach an entire team? Just as I was

about to decline, a voice inside me arose. Why not give it a try?

On Sunday, I reviewed the lesson plan yet again, took a deep breath, and

started instructing the unfamiliar team. After the warm-ups, a swimmer named

Ryce caught my attention. While others chatted, he remained to the side,

sulking. As the swimmers worked on synchro-specific figures, Ryce’s apathy

was too palpable to ignore.

Part 2: Show us the conversation-- either by giving us a few relevant lines of

dialogue, or summarizing it entirely. I don’t recommend writing the entire thing out,

though, especially if it’s a long conversation: just give the reader enough that they get

the important ideas. What were you thinking and feeling? How did your opinions (or

the other person’s opinions) evolve or change?

“Hey Ryce,” I waved, “Wanna talk for a sec?”

He glanced my way and swam over.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded, but his eyes couldn’t lie.

“Do you want to try engaging with your teammates?”

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Ryce’s expression turned from a frown to a

feeble laugh. “I don’t fit in there. I’m too weak for everything.” Through our

conversation, I learned that he had combated leukemia.

“Why am I even here?!” Tears escaped Ryce’s eyes, getting trapped in his

goggles and fogging the lenses.

My eyes watered, too. Shocked by his words, I couldn’t help but think of the

similarities between our experiences. I remembered watching the glaring number

on the heart rate monitor spike to 186, feeling an invisible hand tighten around

my neck. I remembered my overwhelming fear of never being able to return to

synchronized swimming again. But despite my fears, didn’t I also have hope?

I looked Ryce in the eye, “Would you like to hear my story?”

“...Even now, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to return to the pool, but I’m still

here, fighting for it. You’ve already gained this hard-earned opportunity. Why not

seize it and make the best of it? There is so much in you. You belong with your

team.”

Seeing his eyes brighten as I connected my story to his, I felt a strong sense of

purpose. Ryce returned to the pool, swimming a little closer to the rest of the

team, his laughter audible. As we waved goodbye and concluded the practice, I

realized my words had formed bridges of camaraderie and trust between the

swimmers and me.

Part 3: Finally, tell us what you learned from this experience. How did this

conversation influence you in the long term? How did you, or will you, apply what you

learned in the future?

Weeks later, I received a phone call from my doctor.

“Amy, I’m sorry, but the condition of your Graves’ Disease makes it too risky for

you to continue synchronized swimming.”

Pain and disbelief overwhelmed me as tears flooded out uncontrollably,

drowning my hopes for the future. For weeks after, I wept as I scrolled through

old pictures of me and my teammates, thinking how I would never be swimming

like this with them again. And then, in one picture, I found us smiling in Captain

America swimsuits. It reminded me of Ryce’s smile.

Suddenly, I got an idea.

The next day, I stepped onto the pool deck with my notebook in hand. Going

directly to the club owner, I shared my thoughts with her. That’s how I became

the youngest coach at our club.