I'm Lovin' It! (McDonalds) - Questbridge Bio Essay

Biographical Essay (650-word limit)

Prompt: We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors helped you to grow?

McDonald's has always had my heart. Not just any McDonalds though, specifically the shabby location down the block from my house with the burnt out lights and never seemed to modernize to kiosks like all the other locations in the borough. However, that's exactly what made the space special to me.

"Wait up!" I yelped as a very desperate attempt to stop my brother from sprinting to the McDonalds door. Just as he halted as I catched up, I sprinted passed him to the door making sure not to not to damage the school-borrowed laptop in my bookbag. "I get the extra McChicken!" I jokingly boasted knowing very well that we were going to split it, as ordered by our mother. She always gave us exactly 4 dollars just enough for 3 McChickens and just enough to keep us busy as she tidied the apartment after her 1st job. This started my obsession with McDonald's.

As the years passed and my rose colored glasses lost their tint, my mother no longer had to ask me to take my brother to McDonald's, I just knew. Later we would joke about how that moment was like in the Quinceaneras when the father would place a pair of heels on the daughter resembling the entrance to womanhood- except we were too poor for a quinceanera and my father was absent. (Tad bit less funny writing it out.)

However, the shift between having been ordered to go to the McDonald's and just knowing when to go strangely provided me with some sort of liberty. That's when the dimly-lit place truly became mine in my eyes.

After long days at school extended by numerous after-school club meetings, the only place that would absolve the stress was the McDonalds. Although there was a Starbucks located right next store I couldn't bring myself to change locations. Inspiration truly strikes there. Write before closing I was able to complete my personal essay that got me admitted to the John Hopkins Humanities program. ---

Rough rough draft was wondering whether this was an idea worth continuing. I was going to go into how I helped my mom study for her citizenship test and the place turned into a place of celebration. Also was gonna elaborate how McDOnalds you can find all walks of life (professionals etc) and how I use that as motivation. Draw greater conclusions on how although I didn't have much options growing up, choosing McDonalds to study and make accomplishments shaped me

*Also hope you all are doing well in light of the virus. Stay stafe :)

It doesn't appear to me that the essay actually helps show the factors that you had to overcome and how those helped shape the person you have become. The essay has too much focus on McDonald's and not enough of a focus on your overcoming obstacles. The fast-food place should only be mentioned in reference to your overcoming obstacles which, frankly speaking isn't reflected much in this essay. You need to be specific.

More appropriate for this discussion would have been how you helped your mom take her citizenship test, in the context of benefits for you and the family. You could also discuss how the loss of your dad as a father figure and growing up in a single parent household has helped you become a person more mature for your age because you had to speed up your adulting process. What kind of adulting process that was and how it influenced your college aspirations would be a more suitable discussion for this essay. Focus more on the "didn't have much growing up" more than anything else for this essay. That is what will shape who you are and why you became the person you are today. That will tell the reviewer more about you rather than the information about McDonald's and its place in your life.

@Holt
Hi! Thank you for taking the time to read and critique, you're comments are really helpful. Do you believe it's best to keep the McDonalds essay and discuss how it became a place for celebration in my life. For instance, after graduating, getting awards, helping my mother pass her civics test we went to McDonald's because we didn't have much money for anything else.

Or do you believe it's best to scratch the essay completely and write one about how I grew up watching shows where the parent teaches the kids but my life was the opposite and I had to teach my mom (go into the challenges faced being first gen)