Personal Essay (800-word limit)
We are interested in learning more about the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your successes. Please describe how the most influential factors and challenges in your life have shaped you into the person you are today.
Hey everyone! I've finally completed a first draft of my QuestBridge bio/personal statement. I know it's not perfect and there's plenty of room for improvement, especially since it needs to be shortened to 800 words right now it sits at 857. I would really appreciate any and all feedback, so please don't hold back I welcome constructive criticism! Thank you!
My phone lit up with six missed calls from a friend I hadn't spoken to in years. The words on the screen read, "Your stepdad just crashed." It honestly didn't feel real, and I didn't think to take it seriously. Why Would I? He had always been unshakable, a man of calloused hands and a face carved from resilience, the kind of strength I thought could never be broken. Suddenly, my mom called, her voice splintered with sobs, and it felt real. The air was heavy with the acrid smell of burnt rubber and gasoline, mingling with the pungent scent of fear and anxiety. Onlookers rushed to the scene, frantically dialing for emergency services, while the wailing sirens grew closer and closer.
As the sirens pierced the air, I realized that this was going to shift the weight of my world, settling it onto my shoulders in a way that felt both inevitable and unbearable. Responsibility was no longer the errands and chores I had known. Being the oldest sibling meant responsibility was already stitched into my days, paying my own bills at sixteen, translating paperwork in waiting rooms, babysitting so my mom could keep working. Now, responsibility had shifted into something heavier. It became hospital corridors and therapy schedules, late-night calls with insurance companies, and still somehow making sure my brother made it to speech therapy and my sister never felt alone with her math homework.
Resilience became the quiet thread stitching my life together. My grades did not always mirror the battles fought behind the scenes, nights of exhaustion, mornings that began before the sun, afternoons split between shifts at work and caring for my siblings. Yet through every setback, I carried an unshakable expectation for myself: to create a future where my siblings could say, We made it.
I think back to when it was just me and my mom, her days swallowed by back-to-back shifts, her nights shortened by the weight of keeping us afloat. She would come home long after dark, still finding the strength to pick me up from the babysitter. And even then, I would tug her awake at one in the morning, asking for a danimals. She would smile through her exhaustion and get it for me anyway. i didn't understand it then, but that small act carried the same sacrifice as every overnight shift, every ache in her hands. It was love dressed as resilience, and it taught me what it means to keep giving even when you have nothing left.
When my mom met my stepdad, our lives shifted again. he was never the type to show much emotion, but I always carried a soft spot for him. With him came my siblings, three pieces of my heart that reshaped my world. Giovanni, my youngest brother, was diagnosed with autism. Suddenly, resilience looked different: it meant learning to cook meals with textures he could handle, sitting beside him through speech therapy sessions, and tutoring him late into the night when the words came slower. it meant guiding my sister through math homework at the kitchen table while translating medical papers for my parents in waiting rooms.
All of this unfolded while I was battling my own storms. Diagnosed with adhd at five, anxiety in high school, and weighed down by depression in between, I often felt like I was crumbling under the same pressure that forced me to stand tall. But even on the hardest nights, I knew that pushing forward wasn't only for me, it was for them.
As the oldest sibling, I have always carried the weight of expectation. And as a Mexican American and an openly feminine gay man, I know what it means to be told, silently and sometimes loudly, that I must work twice as hard to be seen as enough. The world does not expect people like me to make it. But if twice the work is what it takes, then twice the work is what I will give.
The odds are not built in my favor. Only 56 Hispanic members serve in the 119th U.S. Congress, making up barely 10 percent of seats, despite Latinos being nearly 20 percent of the population. Across all elected offices, less than 2 percent are held by Latinos, and only 0.24 percent are openly lgbtq. For someone like me, the pathway into public office is narrow. And yet, I have already carved spaces where none existed, organizing, protesting, advocating, raising my voice when silence would have been easier.
I have been told that I do too much, that I will burn myself out. Maybe they are right. I pay bills, manage responsibilities, work 35-hour weeks, and still find time for advocacy. But this is who I am. Resilience has always been my inheritance, and responsibility my burden. i know what it feels like to stand alone, and I know that I will keep standing because my siblings need me to.
I will go to college. I will study public policy. I will continue to fight for equity, to make space for voices like mine in rooms that have long been closed to us. And maybe one day, when another Mexican American kid - gay, brown, and underestimated looks at me and thinks, if he made it, I can too, then I will know I have done something right.
We are interested in learning more about the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your successes. Please describe how the most influential factors and challenges in your life have shaped you into the person you are today.
Hey everyone! I've finally completed a first draft of my QuestBridge bio/personal statement. I know it's not perfect and there's plenty of room for improvement, especially since it needs to be shortened to 800 words right now it sits at 857. I would really appreciate any and all feedback, so please don't hold back I welcome constructive criticism! Thank you!
My phone lit up with six missed calls from a friend I hadn't spoken to in years. The words on the screen read, "Your stepdad just crashed." It honestly didn't feel real, and I didn't think to take it seriously. Why Would I? He had always been unshakable, a man of calloused hands and a face carved from resilience, the kind of strength I thought could never be broken. Suddenly, my mom called, her voice splintered with sobs, and it felt real. The air was heavy with the acrid smell of burnt rubber and gasoline, mingling with the pungent scent of fear and anxiety. Onlookers rushed to the scene, frantically dialing for emergency services, while the wailing sirens grew closer and closer.
As the sirens pierced the air, I realized that this was going to shift the weight of my world, settling it onto my shoulders in a way that felt both inevitable and unbearable. Responsibility was no longer the errands and chores I had known. Being the oldest sibling meant responsibility was already stitched into my days, paying my own bills at sixteen, translating paperwork in waiting rooms, babysitting so my mom could keep working. Now, responsibility had shifted into something heavier. It became hospital corridors and therapy schedules, late-night calls with insurance companies, and still somehow making sure my brother made it to speech therapy and my sister never felt alone with her math homework.
Resilience became the quiet thread stitching my life together. My grades did not always mirror the battles fought behind the scenes, nights of exhaustion, mornings that began before the sun, afternoons split between shifts at work and caring for my siblings. Yet through every setback, I carried an unshakable expectation for myself: to create a future where my siblings could say, We made it.
I think back to when it was just me and my mom, her days swallowed by back-to-back shifts, her nights shortened by the weight of keeping us afloat. She would come home long after dark, still finding the strength to pick me up from the babysitter. And even then, I would tug her awake at one in the morning, asking for a danimals. She would smile through her exhaustion and get it for me anyway. i didn't understand it then, but that small act carried the same sacrifice as every overnight shift, every ache in her hands. It was love dressed as resilience, and it taught me what it means to keep giving even when you have nothing left.
When my mom met my stepdad, our lives shifted again. he was never the type to show much emotion, but I always carried a soft spot for him. With him came my siblings, three pieces of my heart that reshaped my world. Giovanni, my youngest brother, was diagnosed with autism. Suddenly, resilience looked different: it meant learning to cook meals with textures he could handle, sitting beside him through speech therapy sessions, and tutoring him late into the night when the words came slower. it meant guiding my sister through math homework at the kitchen table while translating medical papers for my parents in waiting rooms.
All of this unfolded while I was battling my own storms. Diagnosed with adhd at five, anxiety in high school, and weighed down by depression in between, I often felt like I was crumbling under the same pressure that forced me to stand tall. But even on the hardest nights, I knew that pushing forward wasn't only for me, it was for them.
As the oldest sibling, I have always carried the weight of expectation. And as a Mexican American and an openly feminine gay man, I know what it means to be told, silently and sometimes loudly, that I must work twice as hard to be seen as enough. The world does not expect people like me to make it. But if twice the work is what it takes, then twice the work is what I will give.
The odds are not built in my favor. Only 56 Hispanic members serve in the 119th U.S. Congress, making up barely 10 percent of seats, despite Latinos being nearly 20 percent of the population. Across all elected offices, less than 2 percent are held by Latinos, and only 0.24 percent are openly lgbtq. For someone like me, the pathway into public office is narrow. And yet, I have already carved spaces where none existed, organizing, protesting, advocating, raising my voice when silence would have been easier.
I have been told that I do too much, that I will burn myself out. Maybe they are right. I pay bills, manage responsibilities, work 35-hour weeks, and still find time for advocacy. But this is who I am. Resilience has always been my inheritance, and responsibility my burden. i know what it feels like to stand alone, and I know that I will keep standing because my siblings need me to.
I will go to college. I will study public policy. I will continue to fight for equity, to make space for voices like mine in rooms that have long been closed to us. And maybe one day, when another Mexican American kid - gay, brown, and underestimated looks at me and thinks, if he made it, I can too, then I will know I have done something right.
