The Common App Essay That Got Him Into Yale + Featured on the NY Times | Jeffrey Yu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5YgIWpIsKM

Welcome back, friends! Today, I have an exciting treat to share with you all!

My dear friend (and co-founder) Jeff, has offered to share his inspirational Common App essay, which not only got him into Yale, but also featured on the front page of the New York Times!

For context, the New York Times hosts an annual competition where they solicit the best college essays from the past application cycle. Jeff never thought he'd even participate in this contest, but a family friend he worked with coaxed him to apply. So, he dropped his application for the heck of it and then promptly forgot all about it. 

One day, he got a call from a mysterious number and found out his essay had been accepted out of hundreds to be featured! He didn't even know he'd won the competition until after he got into Yale! In writing this inspirational essay, Jeff has to thank so many people who inspired him—from his family to his friends, teachers, and especially his Dad. One of his biggest inspirations was another student, Lyle Lee, for his own essay about his immigrant parents. 

Jeff hopes that by sharing this essay, he can pay it forward. This Common App essay is about the story of his father, the differences in their upbringings, what Jeff has learned from him, and his take on what this all says about our concept of ‘worth’ in broader society.

— 

Not all sons of doctors raise baby ducks and chickens in their kitchen. But I do. My dad taught me.

While my childhood was spent in a deteriorating industrial town, my dad was raised during the onset of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. After forgoing university so his sister could attend, my dad worked on a commune as a farmer. So while I grew up immersed in airy Beethoven melodies each morning, my dad grew up amid the earthy aromas of hay and livestock. Every time that I look between our grand piano and our baby chickens, I’m amazed by the stark differences between our childhoods, and how in raising livestock, my dad shares a piece of his own rural upbringing with me.

Embracing these differences, my dad has introduced me to diverse experiences, from molding statues out of toilet paper plaster to building greenhouses from the ground up. So you might be wondering: What does he do for a traditional 9-to-5 job? He’s already captained a research vessel that’s navigated across the Pacific, designed three patentable wind turbines and held every position imaginable, from sous chef to Motorola technician.

The answer? Nothing. He’s actually a stay-at-home dad right now.

My family is a matriarchy in a patriarchal community. Accordingly, I’m greeted with astonishment whenever I try to explain my dad’s financial status. “How lazy and unmotivated he must be!” Many try to hide their surprise, but their furtive glances say it all. In a society that places economic value at the forefront of worth, these assumptions might apply to other individuals, but not to my dad.

When I look at the media, whether it be the front cover of a newspaper or a featured story in a website article, I often see highlights of parents who work incredible hours and odd jobs to ensure their children receive a good upbringing. While those stories are certainly worthy of praise, they often overshadow the less visible, equally important actions of people like my dad.

I realize now that my dad has sacrificed his promising career and financial pride to ensure that his son would get all of the proper attention, care and moral upbringing he needed. Through his quiet, selfless actions, my dad has given me more than can be bought from a paycheck and redefined my understanding of how we, as people, can choose to live our lives.

I’m proud to say that my dad is the richest man I know — rich not in capital, but in character. Infused with the ingenuity to tear down complex physics and calculus problems, electrified with the vigor of a young entrepreneur (despite beginning his fledgling windmill start-up at the age of 50) and imbued with the kindness to shuttle his son to practices and rehearsals. At the end of the day, it’s those traits in people that matter more to me than who they are on paper.

Stories like my dad’s remind me that worth can come in forms other than a six-figure salary. He’s an inspiration, reminding me that optimism, passion and creativity can make a difference in a life as young as mine. It’s those unspoken virtues that define me. Whether it’s when I fold napkin lotuses for my soup kitchen’s Christmas dinner, or bake challah bread French toast sticks for my chemistry class, I’m aware that achievement doesn’t have to be measured empirically. It’s that entrepreneurial, self-driven determination to bring ideas to life that drives me. My dad lives life off the beaten path. I, too, hope to bring that unorthodox attitude to other people and communities.

All too often I’m left with the seemingly unanswerable question: “What does my dad do?” But the answer, all too simply, is that he does what he does best: Inspire his son.

— 

There are three places where this essay really shines through: 

1. writing quality

2. subversion of expectations, and 

3. emotional reflection. 

   
   

Writing Quality

First off, the intro, twist, and ending all use strong hooks that keep the reader engaged and on their toes. You can see the same intentional sentence structure in each of these moments throughout the story. I start with one long sentence followed by a shorter, punchier sentence–you can see it in different forms, like a question to the reader, but it's basically the same pattern and structure of alternating long descriptive sentences with short pithier ones.

The second part of writing quality consists of vivid descriptions. This isn't a traditional chronological essay; it's more of a reflective piece. But that doesn't stop Jeff from bringing my descriptions to life. My top tip? Use character descriptions as opportunities to bring the story to life.

The third part of writing quality is surprising details. While my dad had a lot of cool details and stories to pull from his own life, it was my job as a writer to take the most interesting ones. This was also true when deciding which details to share from my own life. I tried to focus on taking the most interesting, non-orthodox ones (rather than all the safe and dull ones). Though this might sound obvious, you’d be shocked at how many essays we receive which are about topics that really anyone could have written about.

Subversion of Expectations

As someone fortunate enough to grow up in an upper-middle-class family, I noticed that most essays talk about the sacrifices their immigrant parents made for them as kids. But rather than force that angle, I decided to switch it up.

There's actually multiple subversions throughout the essay. There's the contrasting juxtaposition of lifestyle imagery with baby chickens and ducks to the grand piano. There’s a dynamic contrast between my dad's successful and impressive background to his humble stay-at-home dad status. And there's also a distinction between the richness of my dad—not in terms of money, but character.

And yet while there are all of these smaller subversions of expectations, it's the broader, macro-level subversion on a societal level that serves as the real kicker. I talk a lot about how my dad has changed the way I look at society, and in sharing his story, I compel the reader to reconsider their own relationship to wealth and parenthood.

Emotional Reflection

The strongest stories are the ones that evoke emotions. To explain just how important this is, I have a story to tell you. Whenever I read the ending of my story while editing, I'd get a stir in my chest. Like anyone should do for their common app essay, I wanted to see what other people thought of it, so I gave it to my mom for a read. She read it and she told me she cried. At first, I didn't think much of it. My mom's an emotional person, and I figured because she had such a close relationship with my dad, it would hit her harder than most. But then I gave it to my sister-in-law to read, who isn't necessarily as close… and she also cried. Then I gave it to my English teacher—she cried. My family friend—she cried. That's when I realized I was onto something.

In my opinion, what makes the essay emotional is the humble appreciation of my dad and how he's challenged my values. And then there’s the inspirational note towards the end defending my dad against traditional societal values. It's a touching story, but one of the biggest traps about these types of feel-good stories is that they can quickly become an essay about someone else. While admissions officers want to learn about other people in your life, they really just want to know how they've affected and influenced you.

To address this, I talked not just about my dad's story but more so about the relationship I had with him. In fact, in the last paragraph, I only wrote about myself and the activities that I’ve done which highlight my leadership, my unorthodoxy, my selflessness, and my entrepreneurial drive. If I said all of these things outright, it would definitely come across as more braggy, but when contextualized within the narrative of my dad's story, they connect.

It's definitely not a perfect or completely unique essay, and it uses a lot of tried and true patterns, but I'm happy with it and hope it will help one of you guys out in your own journey when applying to college. 

Hope this helped! We’re always rooting for you!

Your virtual big brothers,

Kevin and Jeff