We honor the many different forms of diversity in our community. Your perspective is valuable because it comes from your life experiences, family backgrounds, and culture. Please tell us about yourself, how you plan to share your perspective with the Colgate Community, and what you hope to learn from other members of the community. Answer in 250 words or less
I can count all of my closest living relatives on both hands. We do not have close family still living in our parent country. When someone looks at me, they cannot easily say, "Oh, you're definitely from 'this country.'" Enjoying my grandmother's recipe for Swedish meatballs for dinner is about the closest that our family gets to embracing our muddled heritage.
However, it is this lack of a glaring cultural background that has led me to want to discover more. I never fail to ask my grandmother all about her Swedish background. I'll pester my father about the family crests that I find lying around his office and the Dutch translation of our last name Valk, which means "falcon." My never-failing curiosity even led me to create an account on Ancestry.com to fully delve into my heritage. I have since then collected many pieces of history and have traced our family tree back for dozens of generations. I have even come in contact with a long, lost great uncle who was my departed grandfather's half-brother. The fact that I can still discover more about my varied background is what continues to interest me. It is this same reaching out that I hope to continue throughout four years at Colgate University. My hometown, Memphis, TN, provides me with an endless source of diversity. Through the Memphis community I have learned more about cultures around the world than I could have ever imagined. Colgate's close-knit community models my small family. I hope to learn just as much about the Colgate community as I have learned about my own family.
I'm at 332 words right now. I know the ending gets sort of bad, but I was hoping that's where I could find some help!
Do I answer the prompt? I know it seems like I don't really talk about my diversity, but I tried to put my history in the best light compared to other vastly more diverse people!
I wanted to avoid the whole "I'm from the deep South" thing, because I'm really not "country" at all!
show how you are going to add diversity to the college. speak a little about some you are proud of
nice essay. my cousin is a senior at colgate.
the part about memphis and the diversity you have experienced there seems kinda tossed in at the end. maybe use your remaining words to talk about specifics
First of all, I love your essay, it sounds very personal and shows a lot about you!
however, if it were me, I would edit down the first paragraph (since you have a word count problem). Your first paragraph takes up a lot of space yet it doesn't say much. It is also kind of hard to follow for a person who doesn't know you.
The second paragraph is amazing. However, the Memphis thing tossed in the end is kind of misleading.
Your main point is "The fact that I can still discover more about my varied background is what continues to interest me. It is this same reaching out that I hope to continue throughout four years at Colgate University." From what I understand, it feels like you are eager to discover your own background since there are endless stories and interesting facts. You want to learn from other members of the Colgate community for the same reason... but, why? Just for the interesting stories? Is it like listening to a mysterious tale, trying to find out what happens in the end? Or are you perhaps interested in different people's story because you hope to use the differences and merge them together to create something different? That would be something I want to write about.
I hoped I helped you, thank you a lot for editing mine!!!
Thank you all for your feedback. This is what I finally submitted to Colgate: [250/250 words]
I can count all of my closest living relatives on both hands. When people look at me, they cannot easily say, "Oh, you're definitely from 'this country.'" In fact, enjoying my grandmother's recipe for Swedish meatballs for dinner is about as much as our family embraces our muddled heritage.
However, it is this lack of a glaring cultural background that has led me to want to discover more. I never fail to ask my grandmother all about her Swedish heritage. I'll pester my father about the family crests that I find lying around his office and the story behind our last name, which is Dutch for "falcon." My never-failing curiosity has even led me to create an account on Ancestry.com to fully delve into my heritage. I have since then collected many pieces of history, traced our family tree back for dozens of generations, and even contacted my long, lost great uncle who was my departed grandfather's half-brother. The fact that I can still discover more about my diverse family background is what continues to interest me. It is this same reaching out that I hope to continue throughout four years at Colgate University. Colgate's close-knit community models my similarly small family. I hope to learn just as much about the Colgate community as I have learned about my own family. Whether by whipping up a batch of Swedish meatballs or whipping out my collected family records, I hope to both share my own and discover my Colgate family's diversity.
I want to reformat this to make it apply to Kenyon's "Where are you from? (Please answer this in any way you'd like-geographically, culturally, artistically, politically, etc.)" and Denison's "Denison values diversity in our college community. Please describe a personal experience that you have had with diversity and tell us how it might inform your college experience." if anyone has any further suggestions they are much appreciated!
Also, I love to edit essays so I'd be more than happy to revise yours if you glance at mine!
Can someone please look over my final edit? I want to try to mold this for other questions
I'm not good a critiquing but here goes.
It is this same reaching out that I hope to continue throughout four years at Colgate University.Whether by whipping up a batch of Swedish meatballs or whipping out my collected family records, I hope to both share my own and discover my Colgate family's diversity.
The wording sounds a little clumsy here.
Also I think these diversity essays are tricky, I'd attack it by telling what I would bring to the community. It leaves me asking if you're going to the college to learn about its culture or to find out more about your ancestry. I think it would be better to say something concrete.
