After procrastinating writing this essay for a solid two months, a stroke of genius finally hit me.
The full prompt is: "Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you."
I chose to talk about gays no longer being allowed to host foreign exchange students, as I'm dating one.
The things I'm concerned about are any words that are highlighted (word choice-wise) and I'm a little unsure if I've used the correct form of "lay" in the first paragraph.
Most importantly though, am I on-topic yet personal? I'm also a bit worried I might get too "bogged down" with background before actually discussing my issue. However, I'm aiming to share my story a bit and allow the admissions folks to see me.
I'm applying to University of Michigan, UChicago, Brown, UPenn, and others along that same caliber.
Any and all feedback is MUCH appreciated!
Thank you in advance.
The Climb
It was the most peculiar staircase I had ever climbed. I don't suppose the stairs themselves were that odd, but the feeling they evoked was misshapen and steeper than the ancient floorboards. I'd scaled them a thousand times; they were the stairs up to my boyfriend's house. Normally he would've been waiting on the landing to kiss me inside, but today I only saw his empty room, the furniture rearranged a bit since he last lay there two months ago.
Two months ago, I whimpered my goodbyes through stained-glass eyes in front of the North Terminal at Detroit Metro Airport. After spending eleven months in our metropolis of Empire, Michigan, Jakob was heading home to Dresden, Germany. Defying the pangs in my chest to keep clinging to him, I let go from one last hug, turned from the sidewalk, and got back into the car. The relentless tears trickled down all the way back to the Metropolis.
On this particular day, I was visiting Cal, Jakob"s hostfather, to give him some things to mail to Germany. In order to fully understand the context here, a little background about Cal is necessary. First thing's first: Cal is gay. Shortly after Jakob arrived, Cal's husband left him. When Jakob went home, Cal lost the only person he still shared his home with.
"My house is...just that now. It's not a home here anymore," Cal admitted once I got upstairs.
His depression had really kicked in. I recalled Cal expressing interest in getting another exchange student on our ride home from the airport. So why didn't he get another student to live with him? He answered this unasked question next.
"They're no longer placing students with homosexual families."
It wasn't just our local organization-this new rule had been laid out on the national level. My mouth hung ajar for a moment as I assessed what it meant for Cal, and what it meant for other same-sex couples. Cal said it was because "some issues came up." What sorts of "issues" would be limited to homosexual partners that heterosexual partners wouldn't encounter? Divorce? Cal went through it.
What troubles me most is that this rule is step back for the United States. Historically, America always strove to more forward--past racial prejudices, past gender bigotry, and now past sexual orientation taboos. Although it is not a condemnation of gay rights, per se, the new policy is a clear statement that people in power are trying to suppress them. I am the future of this country. The future is created not by what I do tomorrow, but by what we do today. Under this conviction, no longer allowing gays to host is a small, yet devastating shot in my leg.
Although it felt uneasy to climb the stairs into Cal's house that day knowing he wasn't there, I knew I couldn't just strand myself halfway up. In this same light, even though it may make Americans uncomfortable to acquiesce (or accept?) gays, we must move forward and climb the stairs toward acceptance and tolerance of all.
You did a great job of hitting the topic dead on. You not only mentioned that it was a local problem, but is now a national issue that clearly affects you. The only thing I would say is in the last sentence "to climb the stairs into Tim's house that day knowing he wasn't there" should more likely be "to climb the stairs into James' house that day knowing Tim wasn't there" because technically it is James' house, not Tim. But that is so minute of a detail that people will more than likely look over it.
