I have to write a main essay about overcoming struggles, and I am stuck between two topics - writing about overcoming my struggles and past identity crises about being mixed race or writing about my struggles with life in the pandemic (and how COVID-19 affected some problems I had before)
I just am not sure about writing about it because I don't really know if admissions would care much about the struggles of being biracial, and I know some colleges are interested in student's experiences with pandemic life and their struggles. Should I just tie in some of my struggles about my racial identity into an essay about my struggles with the pandemic?
Hi @softeddybears!
I think writing about your struggles being biracial is a great idea. Talking about your past identity crises, the way you have been treated, your values, how you were raised in two different worlds, etc. - all of those would make for great topics! Writing about something like this can be tough because there will likely be many other students applying who are also biracial, so I encourage you to do a lot of reflection and figure out how your experience is different from others and what specific moments/experiences you want to share with AOs that will provide them insight into who you are.
I recommend not trying too hard to weave in COVID-19. You do have the opportunity to mention COVID-19 related struggles on the Common App (see here: https://www.commonapp.org/blog/COVID-19-question-common-app), so you can include it there instead and just focus on your biracial identity in one essay so it doesn't sound too scattered.
Whatever you choose to write about, you want to hone in on a specific experience or collection of experiences and highlight your personal growth. A good rule of thumb is that your essay should have details specific enough that no one else could be its author.
Good luck writing!
I think that doing an essay mainly about the struggles of being bi-racial would be an excellent topic for an admissions essay. You can still tie in some struggles that have gotten worse due to COVID-19, but I think that schools would be more interested in the struggles of being bi-racial.
That's a great topic, and I know your schools would be interested in that. This was a while back, but wish you the best of luck on hearing back from the schools with good news.
Bi-racial? How does that affect your daily life? Colleges want to hear that you had real daily struggles that you had to overcome. Being bi-racial today isn't really a topic that you can write an entire essay about. I'd suggest that you write about how restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 have had an impact on you, and how you pushed through and overcame those challenges. Bi-racial is just really another way of saying that you have more than one ancestor. To be completely honest, I'm not sure that colleges will find that interesting. Unless you have numerous events where you were made fun of because of the social construct surrounding the hue of your skin, you shouldn't base your essay on biracial issues. If you want your essay to be remembered by AOs, then you need to discuss challenges that have affected your daily life. I'm not criticizing, just trying to help you get into the university of your choice. Good luck, hope this helps!
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Btw just to clarify what do bi-racial and racial identity mean?