Undergraduate / I had my mind set on going abroad for college, and all before that has felt like an intermission [3]

Hey all, this is my Common App essay. I've already submitted it, and I'm currently working on writing supplements for individual schools, but I'd still love any thoughts/opinions on it. I'm from Singapore, and I'm applying both Early Action and Regular Decision to mostly LACs.

I've chosen this essay prompt:
Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Thanks in Advance! :)

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For as long as I could remember, I had my mind set on going abroad for college, and everything before that has felt like an intermission. It represented so much to me because it was symbolic-it was a chance for me to rewrite my personal narrative.

I grew up in a family with a domineering mother. While she did her best in her capacity as a parent, she had it tough-her parents had died early, and her marriage was non-existent. I had an absent father whom I rarely saw, and my parents slept in separate beds, rarely communicating unless necessary. She was bitter and angry, and perhaps she had a right to be. As she frequently tells my sister and me, she sacrificed a life outside of home to take care of us, and we were all she knew. So when her anger surfaced, it was directed at us. As a way of exercising her dominance, she would scream, hit, and slap us, sometimes even in public.

I never felt like I could do anything right. Nothing was good enough. I knew I definitely failed to have her approval after she found out I was gay. She once said, "I am so disgusted to call you my son," and "I am just short of taking a knife and killing you" in a fit of anger at the mere thought of me being gay.

Being a conservative Christian made it harder since her values were rooted in religion. I found the best strategy to deal with her outbursts was to maintain impenetrable silence. I am a dreamer by nature, and coping with my situation nurtured my innate introspectiveness, and was the spark of my intellectual curiosity.

I began thinking on a deeper level about why my mom acts the way she does-policing how I "perform" my gender by affirming any behavior that would be stereotypically "masculine" and attempting to eradicate anything she thinks might be "feminine" by even throwing out my possessions. Seeking solace in reading, I discovered theorists like Judith Butler. Her theory of gender performativity and the concept of the social construction of gender opened my eyes to new ways of seeing the world. I was hungry to know more.

It made me interested in exploring questions such as the origins of discrimination and oppression of all kinds, including race and class. I intend to explore how religion affects human thinking patterns, looking at binary opposition, cognitive and confirmation biases, and related phenomena, through the lens of various disciplines like psychology, sociology and philosophy. When you've been through pain, it opens you up to see and recognize pain in others. My experiences have taught me resilience, empathy, and drove me to study the human condition in academic depth.

Much of my intellectual curiosity stemmed from my experiences and was nurtured outside of school. Growing up in Singapore, I never felt fully engaged with the education I was receiving. The system largely encouraged rote learning, and studying for the sake of studying-for test taking-rather than for true learning and reflection. Once, while waiting for the papers to be given out in an exam hall, a student yelled out for the teachers to hurry saying, "My brain is losing information by the minute!" That exemplified the learning we were doing-for momentary recollection and shallow comprehension, only to be void thereafter.

Going abroad for college symbolizes the chance for me to gain autonomy, to grow as a person, to find like-minded, passionate individuals, to pursue my intellectual curiosity, and to rewrite my narrative. Inevitably, my story has made me who I am today, and I am confident I can meet future challenges with the resilience and capacity for empathy that I have developed through my formative experiences.

Undergraduate / I was a kid with big dreams. Fashion was both an inspiration and an escape from my humdrum life. [3]

Hi everyone, this is the prompt for Vassar's writing supplement: How did you learn about Vassar and what aspect of our college do you find appealing? (Limit 350 words)

I would love to get some feedback/thoughts/opinions on my response and anything I could change to make it better!

My essay response below:
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I was a dreamy kid with big dreams. Fashion was both an inspiration and an escape from my humdrum life. I devoured everything fashion related, from magazines to books, and one of those books was The Devil Wears Prada, the iconic novel-turned-movie. In the book, the protagonist Andy befriends a beauty editor named James, a Vassar graduate at the fictional magazine Runway. That was a place where I imagined I wanted to be in ten years, so I believed Vassar could be the right place in my trajectory there.

Fast forward to today - my interests have shifted organically from fashion to sociocultural and gender issues. This is due to both connecting my personal experiences to an intellectual curiosity and having experienced a part of the [fashion] industry and its work, which revealed how insincere and shallow some people in the industry could be.

While my interests have changed, Vassar, however, still seems to be the right place for me. The academic freedom of a liberal arts education at Vassar would nurture my intellectual curiosity to explore various fields of study, and also combine all of my interests in an interdisciplinary manner. Looking at Vassar's course catalogue, I saw courses like "Perspectives in Deviant Subculture", "Language, Gender and Media", and "The Art of Reading and Writing". Imagining learning about, deconstructing and discussing these concepts across disciplines such as Sociology, Anthropology and English in an intimate class of passionate students brought a heady rush, much like flipping through fashion magazines as a form of escapism did when I was younger.

When I was younger, dreaming was a form of escapism for me because I wasn't where I wanted to be. At Vassar, dreaming would no longer be a device for escapism, but for imagining new ideas and concepts. It will not be needed because I will be where I want to be, fully engaged with the education at Vassar by being part of an intellectual community who wants to learn for the sake of learning.

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Thank you!