One Vivid Andover Memory

I was a 13-year-old girl from a mostly white and Asian suburb in NJ. I had never been acutely made aware of my Korean-American background. Race wasn't an issue in my life. 

I was in large part naive; my surroundings allowed me to remain so. I had read books dealing with race, and I had an understanding of history and current affairs. But I had no firsthand experience with discrimination, and race was not something I thought about often. 

When I came to Andover, there were no issues of race as far as I could tell. Kids were nice, well behaved. In that kind of environment, it's easy to forget about a problem that isn't yours. 

Every Wednesday afternoon, Andover students gathered in the chapel for All School Meeting, or ASM. Usually, ASM is a performance, a program, or a guest speaker. 

One Wednesday, a speaker walked on stage, and I'll never forget how he opened his speech: 

"Everyone raise your hands," he ordered. All 1,100 students and faculty raised their hands. 

"Now, keep your hand up if you've ever thought about the color of your skin in your life." Most students kept their hands up. A few very honest ones pulled them down.

"Now keep your hand up if you have thought about the color of your skin in the past year." Many students and faculty lowered their hands. I, too, lowered my hand. I hadn't thought of my race since I could remember, really. 

"Keep your hand up if you have thought about the color of your skin this past month." Even more hands dropped.

"Keep your hand up if you have thought about the color of your skin this week." Few hands remained. They were distinctly the hands of minority students at Andover.

"Now keep your hands up if you've thought about the color of your skin at least once today." 

Those hands stayed up. 

I was shocked. Maybe it was because some of those students were my friends and I never thought of us as remarkably different. Maybe it was because I didn't think there were race issues at Andover, which seemed like the safest haven in the world. Or maybe it was the truth that shocked me: that every single day, these students thought about the color of their skin, whereas I didn't have to. How different our lives were, and how much energy that must consume. 

What stayed with me that day was a sharper awareness of the world and a reminder of the non-sibi (not for oneself) philosophy that Andover tries to impart on its students. Without that lecture, who knows how much longer I would have gone through my young adulthood only thinking about racial awareness as an abstract idea through my own subjective lens, without thinking about how racial issues impacted the psychology of others? Maybe only a couple years. Maybe my entire life. 

That Wednesday's ASM stands out to me as an example of what a great school can do for its kids. And one reason why parents might choose to send their students to one school over another. I was fortunate to attend Andover, with its resources, great teachers, college prep, and financial aid endowment. But Andover was truly great because it went one step beyond facilities and opportunities. It also sought to make its students better, more understanding, more enriched and engaged. Those goals were written into its motto. And they were achieved through the school's unique structure, its funding of special events and programming, and its emphasis on living a moral life. 

To parents looking at schools, I suggest asking the school what it stands for. What is its motto, or its vision for its students, beyond academics? And  what does the school do to back that up?

Even though I graduated from Andover 10 years ago, I remember that ASM vividly to this day. I can still remember the jolt of understanding I had, the feeling of illumination and also discomfort at dealing with a new reality. Those feelings are the germs of learning and growth - in school and in life.

Why I Love Working on the Essay

I've worked with students applying to boarding school, university, even business and med school. I've done everything from test prep to admissions consulting to school tour planning. But these days I am fortunate enough to specialize in the the part of the admissions process I love the most: the personal essay. 

What that means is that I help students to do three things: 

1. Brainstorm essay topics
2. Decide on the right narrative structure
3. Edit language and style as needed

The real work, I always say, is in the first two steps. The third is a piece of cake once you have the first two.

Brainstorm

It's almost every other student who comes to me with their head down, mumbling the phrase "I have nothing to write about. I'm so boring." I get excited when a student tells me this. Because I know with 100% certainty that by the time we're done, they'll have an essay that is definitely not boring.

The most enjoyable part of the process of helping a student with the college essay is getting to know them. If a student has no idea what to write about, my first job is to ask him leading questions and have him do exercises to break through the old ways he is thinking about himself to unearth the really unique and awesome things and moments in his life. Everyone is unique. I know that's a cliche, but what's cool is that it's really true. And once we know what possible topics and angles the student can use for a great personal essay, we can move on to finding the best way to lay it out. Sometimes step 1 takes a while - a few meetings even. But it is the most important part. Figuring out potential topics and stories are the foundations upon which the essay can be built!

Structure

Will the essay be told chronologically start to finish? Will it be told backwards? Will it be told as an action tale, or will it have lots of exposition? How about a graphic novel-type essay? Will there be an overarching message depicted through multiple smaller ideas or stories? Will it utilize a frame narrative? There are endless choices for how one can organize and move meaning through an essay. Depending on the topic, the story involved, and the theme, the student and I will determine what narrative structure(s) might work best. After this phase, students may write a few essays with different topics, and they may even try a few different structures for each topic before deciding which works best. That leads us to phase 3. 

Edit

Once the essay topic, theme, and structure are decided, the writing is the easy part! I don't get too involved, since the student has to write out the essay drafts. I do some editing during revisions to enhance language, tension, momentum, etc. But I am very adamant that the student's original style remain intact. That is a very important element to the essay as well, and I wouldn't bulldoze over it for the world. The editing phase is the kind of editing your English teacher may give you on your essay. Except I will spend a lot more time and detail on it. This phase is fun for me since I get to do some more traditional writing coaching, helping students understand why word choice, flow, and sentence structure are so important.

I've been doing this work for 6 years, and it never gets old. Each young person comes to me with a wealth of interesting experiences, ideas, habits, preferences, and hobbies. I get to hear about those things, and then I get to help shape them into a piece of wonderful creative non-fiction. I am a writer at heart, and this process is really fun for me.

But the best part about working on the personal essay is that it's really an uplifting, positive process. The essay asks what is special about you? and the student and I meet to discuss and work on that question, sometimes for weeks or months on end.  The admissions rat race is rigorous, tough, and riddled with challenges and expectations that often produce insecurities and doubts. The essay is really a chance for a student to take a good look at him or herself and feel pride and self-worth in who he or she has become. I get to help awesome human beings see the ways in which they are awesome, even ways they didn't fully realize. And the student walks away feeling, hey, I'm pretty cool, and I've got a pretty cool way of expressing that. If that's not something to enjoy, I don't know what is.

Summer Programs for Scientists

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." 

-Albert Einstein

To continue the series on summer programs, below is a selection of extremely high quality and competitive summer programs for high school scientists. Research to figure out whether a program is good for you, and to learn more about deadlines, tuition, and application requirements. If these programs do not work out, you can always try contacting research institutions at nearby universities for internships. Let me know if you need assistance. 

• Center for Excellence in Education Research Science Institute
• Summer Science Program (SSP)
• DEEP Summer Academy
• COSMOS
• MIT Summer Programs

Many Young People Flourish in Boarding Schools

I wrote a letter to the editor at the South China Morning Post in response to Kelly Yang's column "Think Twice before Farming out Parental Duties to Boarding Schools." It was published in the paper and the website today, Tuesday April 21. 

Here is a link. Full text is below:

In reply to Kelly Yang's column, "Think twice before farming out parental duties to boarding schools" (April 1), I would say think twice before dismissing these schools.

I graduated from Phillips Academy Andover and then Harvard University in 2009. Despite what her article might lead your readers to think, my time at Andover was not dominated by substance abuse; I was not sexually harassed; I maintain a close relationship with my mother. I had a great boarding school experience, and I am not the exception to the rule.

If Yang's issue is with sending students to boarding school too young, then she should narrow the scope of her argument instead of making sweeping criticisms of boarding school.

She says boarding school is recommended when a student is internally motivated to apply. Of course, it would be great if all 13-year-olds knew exactly what they wanted, but that is rarely the case. Parents are often the ones to find, and then direct and nurture, ambitions and opportunities for their children. I did not know much about Andover before my mother suggested applying. That does not mean it was the wrong choice for me, or that I gained less from attending than a student who knew of the opportunity earlier.

Boarding schools are not the only places where dangers lurk. School administrations need to be held accountable for punishing and weeding out threats. That does not mean boarding school as a concept is flawed.

In the end, top boarding schools will accept students who are likely to flourish and willing to attend.

Families should be realistic and informed when applying, and of course prioritise the student's needs. On the other hand, parents thinking about boarding schools should realise they will miss their child immensely. Though my mother does not regret her decision, she does regret that we missed out on some of the last years we could have lived together under the same roof.

Juli Min, New York

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Many young people continue to flourish in boarding schools

SHSAT Proposed Reforms

Last Friday, April 17, 2015, I attended a panel hosted by the Asian American Bar Association of NY on proposed reforms for the SHSAT, or Specialized High School Admissions Test (pronounced "shazat"). In 2012, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed a federal civil rights complaint on the unfairness of using standardized testing as the only measure of admissions - the process, they assert, is cutting out worthy students from African American and Latino communities. The case is ongoing. 

There are only a handful of Specialized High Schools in NYC that use the SHSAT as their one and only standard of admission, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. This single-standard admissions process has created "Hawaii's within New York" - for example, Stuyvesant right now is 72% Asian, 24% White, 2.4% Hispanic, and 2% Black. 

The panel included a co-chair of the Specialized HS Task Force, a former NYC School Superintendent, senior counsel from the NAACP LDC, and the director of a non profit that provides test prep to students in Black and Hispanic communities. 

A lot was said about why the SHSAT may or may not be fair. Some listed ways the exam was overly confusing and complicated, impossible to master without test prep. Others said testing was the only fair and objective measure. Some rallied against prep culture. Others blamed the issue on a lack of publicity. Some claimed that multiple measures admissions is more comprehensive and fair. Others pointed out that schools using multiple measures have their own issues around racial inequality. 

The point that cut through the chatter, however, belonged to former Superintendent Edward Seto: "We need to take it back to the root cause." He pointed out that test scores for Latino and African American students were already significantly lower by early middle school. The specific format of the high school test was not the real problem; the problem was the inequality that pervades the system from much earlier on, and the administration's failure to address it. When panelists championed programs like DREAM, Seto pointed out that funding had been cut from the program's transportation, and many eligible students weren't even able to attend sessions. Whereas everyone postulated about why the SHSAT should be tweaked slightly this way or that, Seto encouraged us to think about the root issues, and challenged the administration to put its money where its mouth is. 

I agree - if we want equality, we need to institutionalize it, equalize it across location and class, and fund it.