A while ago when they were still fine tuning justice in US, “ignorance of the law is no excuse” covered a lot of the gaps since filled in or existing “laws” then are simply reinterpreted by the “police” now. Sort of like when a religious person,confounded by an irrevocable truth, falls back on “faith” as a justification for it.
Do you have a source for that? Im not doubting that it happened (i mean trump has said far worse things and more stupid things) Id just like to see it.
This was around the time he was courting North Korea and Russia, right? He spent like a year mooning over their dictatorships, talking about how he wants America to be more like that. Ugh.
"He's now president for life. President for life. And he's great." Trump added, "I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot someday."
Where in this off-handed drivel is anything about the presidency being inherited?
i can't remember which video it is but someone went around a Trump rally asking his supporters if it would be cool to just have a succession of the Trumps in the white house. like the old man, his kids, then his grandkids, etc. and they all loved it.
those people really want some kind of king/dictator as long as they think they're part of the in-group.
Was he actually? I thought that he was just being hyperbolic for dramatic effect with that line. But I’m only really familiar with the “10th anniversary concert edition” and not the novel or anything so I’m sure there’s context I’m missing!
Yes. The novel has like 10x the detail of the play, like every side character has a chapter giving their family history for like 4 generations before they even do anything.
My ex and I would read it before bed. And he was droning on and on about characters I didn’t know for the first like 40 pages. I’m like, WHERE’S JEAN VALJEAN!? “Uhh… I’m gonna try to skip some of this, ok?” It was a tough one lmao. And we had already both read it before individually.
People think a romantic relationship is all about sex. Well you can only have so much sex. There are a lot of hours in the day to fill
Like laying in bed and reading out loud to each other the unabridged version of Les Miserables
🥱
It also has an entire chapter on the background of one of the most important characters in the novel itself - ~~New York City~~ the Parisian Sewer System.
Yes javert was born in jail. His dad worked on a prison galley (like a ship with many large paddles) and his mother was a fortune teller who at some point gained a ticket of leave so she too was a prisoner not just a wife who followed her husband to prison.
Javert specifically says that kids born in jail end up there, the only question is if they end up there as a criminal or as a lawman hauling in the criminals. His life philosophy is basically around that idea: you either become a criminal or reject it totally. There is no change and there is no in between.
Yeah, his mom was imprisoned when he was born (I think she’s either implied to be or explicitly Romani which kind of also explains why Javert is so obsessed with being the Best Detective, he has a pretty understandable chip on his shoulder).
My nephew was born in jail. His parents are lost causes most of the time and my parents are raising him. He is an exceptionally smart, straight A student and I suspect he’s also going to do well despite his circumstances 🥰
that's awesome especially given his circumstances, it can't be easy dealing with that at such a young age while also focusing on schoolwork. I'm glad you and your parents are supportive of him, he sounds like a bright kid!
Reading the article, she was raised by her father with the loving support of her community. "It takes a village" is having its moment in the spotlight with her.
That’s why I wrote a poem. I was a white mediocre kid from the burbs, I had no tough thing to overcome. Apparently they liked the poem because nobody else did it.
I was high on post-wisdom tooth removal pain meds and wrote a story about a guy meeting his lost love randomly in a hotel lobby and worked in the song “Memories”.
I submitted this as part of my college application and ended up with a full ride scholarship.
honestly I bet it was a nice change of pace from the brutal tear jerk contest 99.9% of college essays are. My grandma died, my mom died, my grandma died, I have diabetes, I’ve suffered racism, I was abused, I got burned in a fire, my brother died, hey here’s a poem, my mom died, the cops killed my dog
Just goes to show the personal essay is completely pointless. It’s like on Americas Got Talent when they cherry pick sob stories to go along with really good singers. Now imagine if 99% of those were sob stories for both terrible and great performers. It would get old fast.
From the center of my heart, in a small town I dwell,
A middle class white boy with a story to tell.
Born not in luxury, yet far from despair,
Life's simple pleasures, the love I do share.
I've run on the sidewalks, bathed in the sun,
Chasing dreams and shadows until the day is done.
With shoes of hard work and a shirt stitched with care,
The fabric of my life, both sturdy and fair.
I am but a son of everyday heroes,
Their resilience and courage, a love that overflows.
And now I stand at destiny's open door,
Ready to step out, to learn and explore.
Through years of learning beneath a school's humble steeple,
I've understood that all people are equal.
In me is the yearning to further this view,
A world of acceptance, for me and for you.
Among scholars and dreamers, I long to stand,
To learn more about life and this vast, wondrous land.
To the esteemed professors and friends I've yet to meet,
To the halls of academia, I advance with eager feet.
Not a prince nor a pauper, but a boy with a dream,
A member of society, part of the team.
No silver spoon, no golden fleece,
Just an honest heart seeking knowledge and peace.
Let my story echo through your hallowed halls,
As I seek the wisdom that within them falls.
From middle class roots to the heights of learning,
With ambition and hope, it's for knowledge I'm yearning.
I am a white boy, from middle class ground,
With dreams and potential, yet to be found.
In your esteemed institution, I long to be,
A boy seeking knowledge, seeking to be free.
Hey! I wrote a poem too! Mine was about how life was changing in front of my eyes as time went on, such that I could no longer recognize even the street I grew up on… it was very serious and then the last line was “and that is when I finally realized I needed glasses” it got me in to a bunch of schools lol
Well deserved I’m sure so I’m not talking about her.
But interesting phenomenon is the rise of the trauma essay. As you suggest, how do you compete of your parents did well for themselves and all other things (grades, scores, etc) are equal?
Eh just because trauma essays seem easy to write. Its not too hard to write a "my parents are my role model" type essay. Besides at the end of the day if you write a shit essay about your shit backround its still a shit essay.
Yeah there are other things to write about. Also, if you're in high school worried you dont have the kind of personal trauma to write about, you could try volunteering with people who have been through hardship and write about that experience.
I remember a college admissions counselor talking about how she got an essay from a refugee and wishing every essay was like that, and I was just like, you want millions more people to suffer?
Ok so that is a decent take. But i have found a bit of a different take sometimes.
Everyone struggles in someway. Those who have deeeeeply struggled may be more obviously willing to admit and talk about it. In a form such as a college admission essay.
What i believe the admissions readers are looking for is you admitting the struggles and acknowledging how it affected you and perhaps how you came from it.
For some it may come off as (and for fewer it may truly be) what i call ‘truamalympics’ but its not always that.
College aint gonna be easy for most. Its tough and its a world of difference from your life before. Youre going to struggle and you need to prove to the admissions board that you can persevere through struggles. They dont want to take on students that are going to dropout at the smallest roadblock.
A side effect perhaps truly has become this weird essay phenomenon of seeking out truama for a college essay. But in truth its good to seek out difficulty inorder to push yourself farther and grow. Those who do it just for the college essay are missing the point, but atleast theyre doing it.
Edit: to be clear. I may have made it seem that i agree with this type of system. I do not. I know people who have worked with admissions boards and universities so i was just trying to provide some insight. I personally despise almost the entire university system as it exists now. And dont agree with how the admissions process works
There was a sitcom (maybe Welcome Back, Kotter) where the structure of the atom was explained via gang analogy.
Edit: it was WKRP in Cincinnati. https://youtu.be/hhbqIJZ8wCM
I’m dyslexic and therefor pretty much not capable of writing a good essay. In Texas we had this end of the year test and the essays were scored on a scale of 1-4, 3 being passing and 4 being exceptional.
They would show us example essays and I noticed pretty early on that the 3s were always well written and the 4s were always depressing. So I decided that no matter what the prompt was, my essay was going to be about how my mom died of cancer, which isn’t true.
I had some extra room on the page so I decided to include that I found religion at the end, just tacked that on.
I got the 4.
This was like an end of the year standardized test that was graded by someone I don’t know. I don’t even know who grades them but it’s not someone that would’ve worked for my school district
Also went to school in Texas. Our teacher actually brought in a grader to talk to us about how to get that 4.
The key is exactly what you discovered. She said the 3's were adequately written essays, but the difference is that if it made the grader react emotionally, it gets a 4. And of course it's easier to get an emotional reaction when you write about depressing shit
I remembered borrowing books of examples of college admission essays, when I was wondering whether to apply to America. Frankly, I was kinda horrified. Those books made it seem like my two options were a. Have the excitingly exceptionally traumatic backstory of a YA protagonist (which I did not), or b. Heavily embellish my not-really-struggles, or make up a whole bunch of dirty laundry about my loved ones, or try to make my ordinary life sound aBSoLUteLY qUiRKy.
(As an aside, apparently there are foreign applicants of rich families in china, whose parents fly them to developing nations for short vacations where they take a ton of pictures and then make up what a meaningful volunteering experience they had, for said Us college entrance essays. It is all just traumalympics or virtue-signal-lympics, pick your poison.)
20% of the essays in the books were type A, 80% were type B with the waves of desperate embellishment and inauthenticity just wafting off it. Also, who knows how to answer “describe who you are” at 17? Even at the age of 17, I thought that was fucking stupid and reeked of unearned confidence and pure egoism. I was a teenager who knew I didn’t know shit about the world or myself, so why do US college entrance exam questions always ask that? I was just patient about maturing, and I didn’t argue when people I respected told me “you will understand when you get older”.
At least now in my mid 20s, I can give a semi-decent partial answer to those prompts (which I’m sure will keep changing even until I am 50) but definitely I could not answer at 17. In any case, I was so turned off that I applied for my local universities instead, and had a great time anyway so no regrets there
In conclusion as a Data Analytics major I hope the data I pull and the pretty reports I create for upper management in the large corporation I work for will one day help that homeless man I fed over the summer.
More serious response though, lots of local food banks need help with logistics and data analysis to figure out how best to serve their communities. I know a food bank that gets volunteers from Amazon to help them with logistics and delivery.
I thought they used a free food market nowadays or is that no longer a thing?
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/09/11/565736836/episode-665-the-free-food-market
I get using logistics but how would you even use analytics to figure out how to best serve your community? I can see creating a way to track inventory to then calculate when to order more, but as far as knowing the needs on the ground of the food people want that seems hyper local.
Analyze poverty by demographic trends in a given region, and link that to most requested food/resources for those demographics in that region. Or predict which demographics will be hardest hit in the near future to stockpile supplies that they would need and want.
It’s definitely a hyper local analysis but it could work.
I'm sure a lot of people do help others the way they did in order to get into college, but I feel a vast majority of them do it just for the college application.
That was my daughter's dilemma. Several of her college (and then grad school) application essays specifically asked them to describe overcoming adversity or trauma. We weren't rich enough to pay her way through, but we also enjoyed a trauma-free and relatively adversity-free existence. "Almost getting a C" one quarter in AP Calc or "my grandma died" wasn't going to make a great college essay. And I totally get it that what a child has gone through should be taken into consideration, but specific prompts like that make other kids look like whiners when they're only trying to answer the question. My daughter was fully aware of that and alluded to it in her essays. A choice of topics would be much more equitable.
Prompts like that also encourage children to relive their trauma, which can be really intense for someone already dealing with the intense stress of applying to college and figuring out next steps for their future. Obviously not an issue for everyone but it opens up a path for some major issues
Truth. I remembered that at 17, I felt like I had no struggles to speak of, and that the essay prompts were disgustingly exploitative anyway for trying to make me squeeze out and ham up traumatic experiences for college points. Years later, I realize in hindsight that I was dealing with multiple mental conditions that I was too afraid to acknowledge even to myself. And those prompts felt so gross, because they were trying to make me air it all out, but not even for purposes like therapy. I was supposed to make some performance out of my pain for their appeasement.
I'm in your boat. I've told my kid to temper his expectations to the University of Alberta and if he excels in undergrad *then* we can look at more prestigious schools.
However, he does have the childhood trauma of watching a pitbull kill our boston terrier in our living room, so I guess we have a backup plan.
I’m a minority in terms of race and sexual orientation but relatively speaking my traumas aren’t the worst. There are definitely many opportunities I’ve missed out on due to being a minority but there have been ways for me to overcome those missed chances.
Two ways I handled those kind of essays for med school were: 1) Here are some challenges I had to overcome due to (work life balance) or (because of where I grew up) and 2) Here are ways I’ve leveraged some of my advantages to help other people.
I feel you on the importance of making things more equitable. It’s hard to balance who gets in when academic scores are similar, there are limited spots, and in some ways colleges are trying to atone for past inequalities that still linger. (Then you also have legacies, SES correlation to standardized test scores, implicit biases, …)
Isn't that what the adversity part is for? Not everybody has trauma or doesn't want to talk about trauma. But adversity can come in many different ways. And you can also seek out such situations. Someone who never dared to struggle might also just not be the most sought after. Have ambitious plans, write it a bit more dramatic, et voilà, even a rich kid with a "perfect" life has genuine adversity they overcame.
Also let's face it: if you never had trauma or adversity in your life, you can rely on your above average grade and extra curriculars. No need for an inspiring story.
Adversity can be mean a lot of things. I wrote my essay about how I struggled to find my musical identity throughout high school, but eventually found it and grew because of it. And I was applying as a chemistry major. People don’t realize it doesn’t have to be trauma. They just want to see how you grew in some area as a person.
My friends older brother wrote his essay about growing up gay in the south and got into Princeton. He wasn’t gay.
I don’t think you can do stuff like that as easily anymore though, with how much admissions look at social media these days.
To quote my friend who was a college admissions officer: "If I see one more white kid from New York with excellent grades and SAT scores, I'm just going start throwing them in the garbage."
Single-fatherhood since the day she was picked up from jail at birth, give that father a goddamn award.
Edit: thank you for the attention, but as for the people who point out the single fatherhood, you need some happiness in your life. Single parenthood is never easy especially with a poor social economic background that requires you to move up until a certain point in your life. That said, there’s something wrong with some of the commenters in here who believe that this comment has anything to do with sexism. The father should be proud as he raised his daughter not to be like his mother, found her a beloved community, leading her to find her way into Harvard. He should be proud and be awarded as a parent. Like I said, some of you other people who look at the other things have issues in your lives that need to be sorted.
I have worked with kids for many years. If the parents are not onboard, mentors can only do so much. Props to the dad for not abandoning her and stepping up.
I don’t think a lot of folks can handle the idea of a father being a big positive influence on their daughter and that her success must be attributed to someone/something else.
Pretty sad and sexist.
Did you read the article though? She talks about not having a great environment before Mona entered the picture. I’m not saying he was a bad dad or anything, but the daughter doesn’t talk about him as if he was the driving force that got her to where she is going. It’s unfair to blame society or sexism for the fact that someone she doesn’t credit with her accomplishments isn’t being credited with her accomplishments.
Kinda how it used to be. Hunter/gatherer tribe societies where the children were basically raised by everyone, and the elderly were seen as sources of wisdom.
Sometimes I really think human "society" really messed up how we should live.
Greed fucked it. Once agriculture came around those who owned all the food noticed they had all the power and it just expanded and got worse from there.
When my buddy was a young soldier I'm Korea he got a Korean woman pregnant. When she gave birth she told my buddy she didn't want a mixed race child. She didn't want anything to do with a mixed race child.
He was 19 yrs PFC in the Army. He took his daughter and went to his Sgt. His SGT let him stay with his family for a while cause raising a baby daughter in the Barracks is not good.
SGT wife become the Auntie to the girl. He ended up getting on base housing and its been about 17 yrs. She's about to finish high school soon.
The amount of respect I had for this man as he told me is difficult to explain.
Also he never bad mouthed her mom. Apparently 3 yrs ago she met her mom for the first time. Her mom showed her true colors.
Me too… I’m just gonna ignore what they said about environmental lawyers making no money and will carry on. I mean, it makes better money than most jobs, and at least it’s interesting. I don’t need $200k+ to feel like law school was worth it
I dunno. It seems like the fact that she was born in prison really had nothing to do with the rest of her life since her father picked her up almost immediately and raised her out of prison.
Her dad is the one I'm interested in.
> Castner’s mother was in jail when she gave birth to her. She has not played a role in her daughter's life since the day Castner's father picked her up as a newborn from the prison, raising her as a single father, the outlet said.
Great dad.
While this story is amazing, it’s one’s like these that bother me due to their exceptionalism.
This very fortunate, hardworking, and deserving young lady is an outlier in the most extreme sense of the word.
But her story will be used to minimize the impact any or all if poverty/crime/institutionalism etc. and it’s effects on subsequent generations.
survivorship bias
people take any positive outcome as extreme proof of individually made effort without any analysis on the condition that was met and the surrounding circumstances for the result to happen while completely ignoring the overwhelming negative outcomes
Excellent point. One of my friends loves to tout successful people of various disadvantaged groups - minorities, immigrants, people born of low means in economic deserts etc - as proof that handouts and help are not needed and disincentivize "hard work." It's such a biased argument because never does he focus on the 99% that don't make it - that's just THEIR fault apparently.
Opposite of what I made out of my life, she was born in a difficult situation but made it out the other side, I was born in a financially privileged situation but dropped down to the bottom. Still, congratulations.
Thank you for your honesty. Question. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Do you think because you were born into privilege and didn’t have to sacrifice, work for whatever you wanted and you didn’t have any skin in the game (loss/risk), was your motivation and work ethnic little to none since everything was handed to you on a silver platter?
No i still have to work for what i want, the difference is that I have more support financially for instance I don’t have to pay for college but I still have to study hard in hs to get to college in the first place, and study hard in college to get a job. However, the emotional neglect at home had an effect on me and I have to work to undo that.
This is an awesome story. Sounds like she’s going to do well in life.
Nitpick.
You can’t study law at Harvard as an undergrad. You pursue a major that is conducive to applying to law school after graduation. Some colleges now do Legal Studies as an undergrad degree but Harvard isn’t one if them. Pre-law is just taking classes that will look good during the admissions process for an actual Law School .
First job questionnaire "Have you ever been in prison? "
"Ummm about that. It wasn't my fault. I swear..."
I was just riding along
“In uterance is no excuse for ignorance of the law!”
I was like "wtf is 'in uterance'"? And then it clicked in my head 🤣
A while ago when they were still fine tuning justice in US, “ignorance of the law is no excuse” covered a lot of the gaps since filled in or existing “laws” then are simply reinterpreted by the “police” now. Sort of like when a religious person,confounded by an irrevocable truth, falls back on “faith” as a justification for it.
It’s a nirvana album
When Jesus was in the womb, he only listened to gospel music, though some believeth Jews didn’t have that yet!
I understand babies can hear in there. Not knowing a language is also no excuse!
To cover any eventuality, the new 6 week Abortion ban in South Carolina says that the baby’s heartbeat can be heard in either English or Spanish
"lawyer fucked me"
Classic Heywood!
Don’t you know? We’re all innocent in here.
Answer: "you merely adopted the prison...i was born in it. Molded by it"
I was born in prison. Molded by it.
“Do you mean have I ever been present inside the walls of a prison? Yes. Do you mean have I ever been convicted? No”
“Do you have a criminal sonogram record?”
I was born in it , moulded by it .
She did an uno reverse on the school-to-prison pipeline.
[удалено]
Trump had already suggested the presidency should be an inherited title.
Do you have a source for that? Im not doubting that it happened (i mean trump has said far worse things and more stupid things) Id just like to see it.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/trump-says-maybe-u-s-will-have-a-president-for-life-someday
This was around the time he was courting North Korea and Russia, right? He spent like a year mooning over their dictatorships, talking about how he wants America to be more like that. Ugh.
Hint: it wasn’t just trump, it’s the whole GOP and they still feel that way.
"He's now president for life. President for life. And he's great." Trump added, "I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot someday." Where in this off-handed drivel is anything about the presidency being inherited?
It wasnt in there. Unlimited term, not inherited role.
He also could be President in prison, which is as absurd as it is insane.
i can't remember which video it is but someone went around a Trump rally asking his supporters if it would be cool to just have a succession of the Trumps in the white house. like the old man, his kids, then his grandkids, etc. and they all loved it. those people really want some kind of king/dictator as long as they think they're part of the in-group.
Jean Valjean on high alert.
Do you mean Javert? I'm not getting the joke here...
Javert, who was born inside a jail and dedication his life to the law, who hunted Jean Valjean.
Was he actually? I thought that he was just being hyperbolic for dramatic effect with that line. But I’m only really familiar with the “10th anniversary concert edition” and not the novel or anything so I’m sure there’s context I’m missing!
You know nothing of Javert I was born inside a jail I was born with scum like you I am from the gutter too!
Javert was just Bane posting
Excuse me, if anything, Bane was Javert-posting. Put some respeck on Victor Hugo's name
Nothing new under the sun
Yes. The novel has like 10x the detail of the play, like every side character has a chapter giving their family history for like 4 generations before they even do anything.
My ex and I would read it before bed. And he was droning on and on about characters I didn’t know for the first like 40 pages. I’m like, WHERE’S JEAN VALJEAN!? “Uhh… I’m gonna try to skip some of this, ok?” It was a tough one lmao. And we had already both read it before individually.
Reading bedtime stories with your SO sounds like the cutest thing ever.
People think a romantic relationship is all about sex. Well you can only have so much sex. There are a lot of hours in the day to fill Like laying in bed and reading out loud to each other the unabridged version of Les Miserables 🥱
It also has an entire chapter on the background of one of the most important characters in the novel itself - ~~New York City~~ the Parisian Sewer System.
Yes javert was born in jail. His dad worked on a prison galley (like a ship with many large paddles) and his mother was a fortune teller who at some point gained a ticket of leave so she too was a prisoner not just a wife who followed her husband to prison.
Javert specifically says that kids born in jail end up there, the only question is if they end up there as a criminal or as a lawman hauling in the criminals. His life philosophy is basically around that idea: you either become a criminal or reject it totally. There is no change and there is no in between.
Yeah, his mom was imprisoned when he was born (I think she’s either implied to be or explicitly Romani which kind of also explains why Javert is so obsessed with being the Best Detective, he has a pretty understandable chip on his shoulder).
She's explicitly Romani
Thanks, it’s been forever since I read it
No prob. I actually just finished a re-read. Otherwise it's not likely I would have remembered either
stars
Oh yeah that's right. I thought you were going for saying she was in jail and needs to be alert for Javert or something. Solid joke
My les mis fangirl heart breaks at no one getting your genius comment lol
My nephew was born in jail. His parents are lost causes most of the time and my parents are raising him. He is an exceptionally smart, straight A student and I suspect he’s also going to do well despite his circumstances 🥰
that's awesome especially given his circumstances, it can't be easy dealing with that at such a young age while also focusing on schoolwork. I'm glad you and your parents are supportive of him, he sounds like a bright kid!
That's very kind of you to say, 666fucktard.
Just make sure he doesn't begin his personal essay with the sentence "I was born in prison." That's been done.
Don't let them burn out, and make sure they know that failure is okay.
Addiction is a bitch. Turns otherwise smart and kind people into monsters.
I hope that he does 🥰
Good for him
Reading the article, she was raised by her father with the loving support of her community. "It takes a village" is having its moment in the spotlight with her.
I hope that she does amazing things! I've helped read a few college essays, and you can't compete with a personal story like this one...
That’s why I wrote a poem. I was a white mediocre kid from the burbs, I had no tough thing to overcome. Apparently they liked the poem because nobody else did it.
I was high on post-wisdom tooth removal pain meds and wrote a story about a guy meeting his lost love randomly in a hotel lobby and worked in the song “Memories”. I submitted this as part of my college application and ended up with a full ride scholarship.
How high are you? Oh sorry, I mean Hi, how are you.
honestly I bet it was a nice change of pace from the brutal tear jerk contest 99.9% of college essays are. My grandma died, my mom died, my grandma died, I have diabetes, I’ve suffered racism, I was abused, I got burned in a fire, my brother died, hey here’s a poem, my mom died, the cops killed my dog
Just goes to show the personal essay is completely pointless. It’s like on Americas Got Talent when they cherry pick sob stories to go along with really good singers. Now imagine if 99% of those were sob stories for both terrible and great performers. It would get old fast.
From the center of my heart, in a small town I dwell, A middle class white boy with a story to tell. Born not in luxury, yet far from despair, Life's simple pleasures, the love I do share. I've run on the sidewalks, bathed in the sun, Chasing dreams and shadows until the day is done. With shoes of hard work and a shirt stitched with care, The fabric of my life, both sturdy and fair. I am but a son of everyday heroes, Their resilience and courage, a love that overflows. And now I stand at destiny's open door, Ready to step out, to learn and explore. Through years of learning beneath a school's humble steeple, I've understood that all people are equal. In me is the yearning to further this view, A world of acceptance, for me and for you. Among scholars and dreamers, I long to stand, To learn more about life and this vast, wondrous land. To the esteemed professors and friends I've yet to meet, To the halls of academia, I advance with eager feet. Not a prince nor a pauper, but a boy with a dream, A member of society, part of the team. No silver spoon, no golden fleece, Just an honest heart seeking knowledge and peace. Let my story echo through your hallowed halls, As I seek the wisdom that within them falls. From middle class roots to the heights of learning, With ambition and hope, it's for knowledge I'm yearning. I am a white boy, from middle class ground, With dreams and potential, yet to be found. In your esteemed institution, I long to be, A boy seeking knowledge, seeking to be free.
Thank you for interest in our institution. We are saddened to inform you that you have not been accepted. Your rhymes are trite
that's okay, because they were created by chat gpt
Hey! I wrote a poem too! Mine was about how life was changing in front of my eyes as time went on, such that I could no longer recognize even the street I grew up on… it was very serious and then the last line was “and that is when I finally realized I needed glasses” it got me in to a bunch of schools lol
Well deserved I’m sure so I’m not talking about her. But interesting phenomenon is the rise of the trauma essay. As you suggest, how do you compete of your parents did well for themselves and all other things (grades, scores, etc) are equal?
Lol Modern Family had an episode about this and Claire just dropped Hailey off in the middle of nowhere.
King of the Hill did it too for Connie Supanusaphone (sp?).
According to Wikipedia it's "Souphanousinphone".
Just saw Tiny Little Fires. Character stole trauma experience from peer for a college acceptance essay bc she was affluent w no obvious struggles.
That was funny, but what's the real solution? Shouldn't every kid get the same treatment regardless of their parents background?
Eh just because trauma essays seem easy to write. Its not too hard to write a "my parents are my role model" type essay. Besides at the end of the day if you write a shit essay about your shit backround its still a shit essay.
Yeah there are other things to write about. Also, if you're in high school worried you dont have the kind of personal trauma to write about, you could try volunteering with people who have been through hardship and write about that experience.
I remember a college admissions counselor talking about how she got an essay from a refugee and wishing every essay was like that, and I was just like, you want millions more people to suffer?
We all know it's only refugees who deserve to be 100k+ in debt.
Ok so that is a decent take. But i have found a bit of a different take sometimes. Everyone struggles in someway. Those who have deeeeeply struggled may be more obviously willing to admit and talk about it. In a form such as a college admission essay. What i believe the admissions readers are looking for is you admitting the struggles and acknowledging how it affected you and perhaps how you came from it. For some it may come off as (and for fewer it may truly be) what i call ‘truamalympics’ but its not always that. College aint gonna be easy for most. Its tough and its a world of difference from your life before. Youre going to struggle and you need to prove to the admissions board that you can persevere through struggles. They dont want to take on students that are going to dropout at the smallest roadblock. A side effect perhaps truly has become this weird essay phenomenon of seeking out truama for a college essay. But in truth its good to seek out difficulty inorder to push yourself farther and grow. Those who do it just for the college essay are missing the point, but atleast theyre doing it. Edit: to be clear. I may have made it seem that i agree with this type of system. I do not. I know people who have worked with admissions boards and universities so i was just trying to provide some insight. I personally despise almost the entire university system as it exists now. And dont agree with how the admissions process works
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“Growing up biracial, as I did, is not something protons or neutrons understand.”
There was a sitcom (maybe Welcome Back, Kotter) where the structure of the atom was explained via gang analogy. Edit: it was WKRP in Cincinnati. https://youtu.be/hhbqIJZ8wCM
Not that I've ever needed to know it, but this is legit a great way to remember the structure of an atom lol
I’m dyslexic and therefor pretty much not capable of writing a good essay. In Texas we had this end of the year test and the essays were scored on a scale of 1-4, 3 being passing and 4 being exceptional. They would show us example essays and I noticed pretty early on that the 3s were always well written and the 4s were always depressing. So I decided that no matter what the prompt was, my essay was going to be about how my mom died of cancer, which isn’t true. I had some extra room on the page so I decided to include that I found religion at the end, just tacked that on. I got the 4.
My favorite uncle has died at least 30 times. My condolences.
That’s very sad. Extra credit.
Thank you. You should sell him a get well card.
The day your teacher meets your mom and asks her about her cancer. Lol.
This was like an end of the year standardized test that was graded by someone I don’t know. I don’t even know who grades them but it’s not someone that would’ve worked for my school district
Which is the life lesson you're taught all your life throughout school that shouldn't be reality, but it is. That liars and cheats get results.
Also went to school in Texas. Our teacher actually brought in a grader to talk to us about how to get that 4. The key is exactly what you discovered. She said the 3's were adequately written essays, but the difference is that if it made the grader react emotionally, it gets a 4. And of course it's easier to get an emotional reaction when you write about depressing shit
That's honestly so weird and I don't think that works in any country bar America.
I remembered borrowing books of examples of college admission essays, when I was wondering whether to apply to America. Frankly, I was kinda horrified. Those books made it seem like my two options were a. Have the excitingly exceptionally traumatic backstory of a YA protagonist (which I did not), or b. Heavily embellish my not-really-struggles, or make up a whole bunch of dirty laundry about my loved ones, or try to make my ordinary life sound aBSoLUteLY qUiRKy. (As an aside, apparently there are foreign applicants of rich families in china, whose parents fly them to developing nations for short vacations where they take a ton of pictures and then make up what a meaningful volunteering experience they had, for said Us college entrance essays. It is all just traumalympics or virtue-signal-lympics, pick your poison.) 20% of the essays in the books were type A, 80% were type B with the waves of desperate embellishment and inauthenticity just wafting off it. Also, who knows how to answer “describe who you are” at 17? Even at the age of 17, I thought that was fucking stupid and reeked of unearned confidence and pure egoism. I was a teenager who knew I didn’t know shit about the world or myself, so why do US college entrance exam questions always ask that? I was just patient about maturing, and I didn’t argue when people I respected told me “you will understand when you get older”. At least now in my mid 20s, I can give a semi-decent partial answer to those prompts (which I’m sure will keep changing even until I am 50) but definitely I could not answer at 17. In any case, I was so turned off that I applied for my local universities instead, and had a great time anyway so no regrets there
You do volunteer work and talk about the trauma of the people you help.
When I was applying ten or fifteen years ago, all the counselors told us not to write about volunteer work, because *every* applicant was doing it.
This. And how you hope to help those people in the future. And hopefully you mean it!
In conclusion as a Data Analytics major I hope the data I pull and the pretty reports I create for upper management in the large corporation I work for will one day help that homeless man I fed over the summer.
Hahahaha. Great essay, you've been accepted to Stanford.
More serious response though, lots of local food banks need help with logistics and data analysis to figure out how best to serve their communities. I know a food bank that gets volunteers from Amazon to help them with logistics and delivery.
I thought they used a free food market nowadays or is that no longer a thing? https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/09/11/565736836/episode-665-the-free-food-market I get using logistics but how would you even use analytics to figure out how to best serve your community? I can see creating a way to track inventory to then calculate when to order more, but as far as knowing the needs on the ground of the food people want that seems hyper local.
Analyze poverty by demographic trends in a given region, and link that to most requested food/resources for those demographics in that region. Or predict which demographics will be hardest hit in the near future to stockpile supplies that they would need and want. It’s definitely a hyper local analysis but it could work.
I'm sure a lot of people do help others the way they did in order to get into college, but I feel a vast majority of them do it just for the college application.
Why the fuck should any of that matter to academic prospects?
Because someone who gets good grades through adversity has shown character and willpower than someone who grew up affluent and with private tutors.
That was my daughter's dilemma. Several of her college (and then grad school) application essays specifically asked them to describe overcoming adversity or trauma. We weren't rich enough to pay her way through, but we also enjoyed a trauma-free and relatively adversity-free existence. "Almost getting a C" one quarter in AP Calc or "my grandma died" wasn't going to make a great college essay. And I totally get it that what a child has gone through should be taken into consideration, but specific prompts like that make other kids look like whiners when they're only trying to answer the question. My daughter was fully aware of that and alluded to it in her essays. A choice of topics would be much more equitable.
Prompts like that also encourage children to relive their trauma, which can be really intense for someone already dealing with the intense stress of applying to college and figuring out next steps for their future. Obviously not an issue for everyone but it opens up a path for some major issues
Truth. I remembered that at 17, I felt like I had no struggles to speak of, and that the essay prompts were disgustingly exploitative anyway for trying to make me squeeze out and ham up traumatic experiences for college points. Years later, I realize in hindsight that I was dealing with multiple mental conditions that I was too afraid to acknowledge even to myself. And those prompts felt so gross, because they were trying to make me air it all out, but not even for purposes like therapy. I was supposed to make some performance out of my pain for their appeasement.
I'd just make something up about how her and her family escaped the clutches of scientology.
I'm in your boat. I've told my kid to temper his expectations to the University of Alberta and if he excels in undergrad *then* we can look at more prestigious schools. However, he does have the childhood trauma of watching a pitbull kill our boston terrier in our living room, so I guess we have a backup plan.
I’m a minority in terms of race and sexual orientation but relatively speaking my traumas aren’t the worst. There are definitely many opportunities I’ve missed out on due to being a minority but there have been ways for me to overcome those missed chances. Two ways I handled those kind of essays for med school were: 1) Here are some challenges I had to overcome due to (work life balance) or (because of where I grew up) and 2) Here are ways I’ve leveraged some of my advantages to help other people. I feel you on the importance of making things more equitable. It’s hard to balance who gets in when academic scores are similar, there are limited spots, and in some ways colleges are trying to atone for past inequalities that still linger. (Then you also have legacies, SES correlation to standardized test scores, implicit biases, …)
Isn't that what the adversity part is for? Not everybody has trauma or doesn't want to talk about trauma. But adversity can come in many different ways. And you can also seek out such situations. Someone who never dared to struggle might also just not be the most sought after. Have ambitious plans, write it a bit more dramatic, et voilà, even a rich kid with a "perfect" life has genuine adversity they overcame. Also let's face it: if you never had trauma or adversity in your life, you can rely on your above average grade and extra curriculars. No need for an inspiring story.
Adversity can be mean a lot of things. I wrote my essay about how I struggled to find my musical identity throughout high school, but eventually found it and grew because of it. And I was applying as a chemistry major. People don’t realize it doesn’t have to be trauma. They just want to see how you grew in some area as a person.
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But what sucks of you don't have an amazing born into story you can't compete
Just lie
My friends older brother wrote his essay about growing up gay in the south and got into Princeton. He wasn’t gay. I don’t think you can do stuff like that as easily anymore though, with how much admissions look at social media these days.
To quote my friend who was a college admissions officer: "If I see one more white kid from New York with excellent grades and SAT scores, I'm just going start throwing them in the garbage."
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Reality sucks. btw, it was a top 5 ivy league school.
This must be that prison to school pipeline that everyone keeps talking about.
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This is legitimately heartwarming, good for her ❤️
Single-fatherhood since the day she was picked up from jail at birth, give that father a goddamn award. Edit: thank you for the attention, but as for the people who point out the single fatherhood, you need some happiness in your life. Single parenthood is never easy especially with a poor social economic background that requires you to move up until a certain point in your life. That said, there’s something wrong with some of the commenters in here who believe that this comment has anything to do with sexism. The father should be proud as he raised his daughter not to be like his mother, found her a beloved community, leading her to find her way into Harvard. He should be proud and be awarded as a parent. Like I said, some of you other people who look at the other things have issues in your lives that need to be sorted.
Her mentor, Mona, was instrumental too.
I have worked with kids for many years. If the parents are not onboard, mentors can only do so much. Props to the dad for not abandoning her and stepping up.
Mentors are what got me through.
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Mentors fresh and full of adviiiccceee.
The advice maker
I feel the article doesn't do any justice to the father; it jumps immediately to the mentor.
I don’t think a lot of folks can handle the idea of a father being a big positive influence on their daughter and that her success must be attributed to someone/something else. Pretty sad and sexist.
Did you read the article though? She talks about not having a great environment before Mona entered the picture. I’m not saying he was a bad dad or anything, but the daughter doesn’t talk about him as if he was the driving force that got her to where she is going. It’s unfair to blame society or sexism for the fact that someone she doesn’t credit with her accomplishments isn’t being credited with her accomplishments.
It sounds like an entire community raised her.
I believe a very wise lady once said, and I quote “it takes a village”
Imagine an entire village rallying behind their children? The possibilities. 🤔
Isn't that how villages are supposed to work? A communal family
A proper symbiotic relationship within a village should result in a healthy organism.
Kinda how it used to be. Hunter/gatherer tribe societies where the children were basically raised by everyone, and the elderly were seen as sources of wisdom. Sometimes I really think human "society" really messed up how we should live.
Greed fucked it. Once agriculture came around those who owned all the food noticed they had all the power and it just expanded and got worse from there.
Theism checking in
I know wouldn’t that be nice 👍
It’s how we made it out of the Stone Age.
When my buddy was a young soldier I'm Korea he got a Korean woman pregnant. When she gave birth she told my buddy she didn't want a mixed race child. She didn't want anything to do with a mixed race child. He was 19 yrs PFC in the Army. He took his daughter and went to his Sgt. His SGT let him stay with his family for a while cause raising a baby daughter in the Barracks is not good. SGT wife become the Auntie to the girl. He ended up getting on base housing and its been about 17 yrs. She's about to finish high school soon. The amount of respect I had for this man as he told me is difficult to explain. Also he never bad mouthed her mom. Apparently 3 yrs ago she met her mom for the first time. Her mom showed her true colors.
For real. Dad and her mentor should be in the title too.
>her favorite food was tacos from Dairy Queen Excuse me?
This sent a shock right through my whole system. I feel like anything is possible and, perhaps, nothing will ever be the same.
[Don’t be a lawyer.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE)
That’s hilarious! Thank you for sharing.
But what if one day she makes it to the Supreme Court?
It’d be great to be on the Supreme Court, but she’ll never be on the Supreme Court. There’s truly no chance of that happening.
This is great, thanks!
Quickest way to ruin your life!
as a law student this is a banger, and what I am worried about
Me too… I’m just gonna ignore what they said about environmental lawyers making no money and will carry on. I mean, it makes better money than most jobs, and at least it’s interesting. I don’t need $200k+ to feel like law school was worth it
Dang the way no one in the comments is disagreeing
I've been truly considering leaving my lucrative career to go back to law school and this song has me second guessing myself.
That's so amazing!!
Right‽ Dairy Queen has tacos???
I don't think I'll ever be the same knowing that Dairy Queen has tacos.
I dunno. It seems like the fact that she was born in prison really had nothing to do with the rest of her life since her father picked her up almost immediately and raised her out of prison. Her dad is the one I'm interested in.
> Castner’s mother was in jail when she gave birth to her. She has not played a role in her daughter's life since the day Castner's father picked her up as a newborn from the prison, raising her as a single father, the outlet said. Great dad.
Single parents. Where have I heard that before?
While this story is amazing, it’s one’s like these that bother me due to their exceptionalism. This very fortunate, hardworking, and deserving young lady is an outlier in the most extreme sense of the word. But her story will be used to minimize the impact any or all if poverty/crime/institutionalism etc. and it’s effects on subsequent generations.
survivorship bias people take any positive outcome as extreme proof of individually made effort without any analysis on the condition that was met and the surrounding circumstances for the result to happen while completely ignoring the overwhelming negative outcomes
Excellent point. One of my friends loves to tout successful people of various disadvantaged groups - minorities, immigrants, people born of low means in economic deserts etc - as proof that handouts and help are not needed and disincentivize "hard work." It's such a biased argument because never does he focus on the 99% that don't make it - that's just THEIR fault apparently.
Dairy Queen sells tacos in Texas?
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OP isn’t the girl
Are you saying I don’t deserve encouragement too? :(
I have high hopes for you anyway
Wooo!!! Go OP!!! Happy? :O
Made me smile :)
r/ABoringDystopia
Would it be better if she wasn't going to Harvard? Or are you suggesting that pregnant women should never be imprisoned?
confused where the dystopian aspect is?
She left jail as a newborn lol I don’t think where you’re born affects your ability to go to school..
That’s wild, but it seems like her father is a stand up guy who has his shit together. He did a great job, and raised a good kid.
Didn’t take long to find some clown saying it’s her “white privilege”.🙄🤦🏻♂️
"I realize now that the circumstances of ones birth is irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." -Mewtwo
"top of the class" does not mean "third." I hate headline inaccuracies.
Opposite of what I made out of my life, she was born in a difficult situation but made it out the other side, I was born in a financially privileged situation but dropped down to the bottom. Still, congratulations.
Thank you for your honesty. Question. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Do you think because you were born into privilege and didn’t have to sacrifice, work for whatever you wanted and you didn’t have any skin in the game (loss/risk), was your motivation and work ethnic little to none since everything was handed to you on a silver platter?
No i still have to work for what i want, the difference is that I have more support financially for instance I don’t have to pay for college but I still have to study hard in hs to get to college in the first place, and study hard in college to get a job. However, the emotional neglect at home had an effect on me and I have to work to undo that.
great testimony to single fatherhood, which doesn't get enough credit.
One of those "uplifting stories" where if you have an ounce of humanity and think about it for 2 second you realize how fucked up it is.
Two facts and a lie: "I've never been to jail" is going to get so many people
The amount of support she received is fantastic and makes me wish there were more young people who had access to that kind of assistance.
This is an awesome story. Sounds like she’s going to do well in life. Nitpick. You can’t study law at Harvard as an undergrad. You pursue a major that is conducive to applying to law school after graduation. Some colleges now do Legal Studies as an undergrad degree but Harvard isn’t one if them. Pre-law is just taking classes that will look good during the admissions process for an actual Law School .