The Common App Essay That Got Me Into the Ivy League (Yale and Princeton)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu1KJiLBaMM

Hey there, friend! My name is Kevin Zhen, and in May 2020, I graduated from Yale with a degree in East Asian Studies. But no, please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not your typical Ivy League grad. I went to Yale on full financial aid, and to support myself, I ended up working as a writing tutor and a college counselor. 

Onto my personal statement! This Common App essay is about my relationship with my father, specifically the summer I worked in my parents’ Chinese restaurant between my sophomore and junior year of high school: 

The Essay

Sophomore year has just ended and it’s the morning of my second day of summer vacation. My mother shakes me, waking me from my eleven-hour slumber.

“Sai lou,” she whispers in Cantonese. “Remember, you have to work at the restaurant today. Your father needs you.”

I rub my eyes with the tips of my fingers. I shake my head. No, I just got home, I need time to recover.

***

There’s no breakfast on the table when I arrive. The food is by the stairs, in the plastic containers from my uncle’s restaurant. My father is sitting on our shoe bench. His head is bent towards his knees. His right forearm is in a cast. His middle finger is taped to his index and fourth finger in a makeshift splint. He tries to put on his grey sneakers that were once white, but fails. I rush to his side and help him. When we’re finished, we head to work together. 

***

I have worked in the restaurant before, but today is different. Instead of answering phones or wiping down tables, I’m in the kitchen, moving between stoves that breathe steam and heat and sweat.

The mornings are slow, so my father takes this opportunity to guide me through my duties. He speaks softly. First, he gives me a tutorial on the small wok used to cook main dishes. Then, the fryer. Finally, the large wok used to cook fried rice.

At the other side of the kitchen, my uncle laughs. “Let me tell you something, sai lou. If you learn anything, it should be how to fry rice. A Chinese man who doesn’t know how to cook fried rice is like an Italian man who doesn’t know how to cook pasta.” Dad lets Uncle take over when we move to the large wok. Uncle watches me closely during my first few batches. “Not too slow. Then the rice burns. Not too fast. Then the rice doesn’t cook evenly.”

“Here, let me give you a small batch. Those are a bit easier.” He fetches the rice and ingredients, dumping them in the center of the wok. “Try now.” 

I cook for several minutes, tossing the rice in the heavy wok. 

When I’m done, Uncle reaches in, and plucks a few grains of rice to try. “Not bad!” he says. “Already better than your cousins!”

***

Yet despite Uncle’s jolly attitude, I hated every day I worked at the restaurant. There’d be no time for sitting, for loitering. We’d work ten hours a day on weekdays, twelve on the weekends. My days had been stolen from me. Life in the kitchen was physically grueling, too: smoke in my eyes, strained muscles from the repetitive work, burns from the deep fryer.

Once, I even considered faking sick so I wouldn’t have to cook anymore, but the thought quickly disappeared as I realized that my injured father would take my place.

***

Three weeks later, as we’re driving home at midnight after a particularly busy Saturday night, my father turns off the radio. He turns to me, coughs and says, “At first, I didn’t think you could do it. But then you showed up every day, woke up every morning, and came with me to the restaurant. You worked in the kitchen. You put in the hours. And never once, did you ever say you were tired.”

He leans over the passenger seat, embracing me in a rare hug. “I’m so proud of you, son,” he says. “And I want you to know that I love you.” 

I stare at my hands on the steering wheel. Grip them tighter. I sniffle, and as I make the left turn on 104th onto the final stretch home, I realize that what I have done this month is what my father has done for twenty years, and I am filled with a sense of relentless gratitude. .

Analysis

There are 3 main reasons why this essay really shines through: 

1. Writing quality

2. How I subvert expectations at the end, and

3. The dynamic or complex relationship between my father and my uncle. 
   

Writing Quality

Let’s start with the writing quality, or more specifically, the manipulation of flow and sentence structure to generate this kind of forlorn mood that perpetuates throughout the first half of the essay. 

Notice how in the second paragraph, I never directly say that my dad is injured. Instead, I create this little movie scene where you can see his cast, his splints, how he fumbles with his sneakers, and also that detail of the sneakers that were once white becoming gray, which is representative of his decay or fall from grace. 

You can feel this kind of rigidity or unease without me having to explicitly say any of those words out loud. This show-don’t-tell technique goes a long way! In fact, when I was working as an essay coaching consultant for Crimson, this was one of the five major categories for rating and analyzing Common App essays. Always try to write descriptions that are so unique and so personal to you that only you could have written them. At the end of the day, that’s what makes your Common App essay both unique, authentic, and memorable. 

The Ending

This is a pretty natural segue to the second reason why this essay is effective, which would be the ending. There’s a pretty obvious contrast between the short sentences we just discussed compared to the longer or mid-length sentences in the final scene. 

The construction of the last paragraph was quite intentional! I had the sentence fragment followed by what is the longest sentence in the entire piece. Here, I’m manipulating my flow once again to signal a thematic shift. Not only have I alluded to my humility and work ethic, but also my awareness towards my father’s sacrifice. So just as the sentence structure has changed, so has the theme or the messaging of the essay. 

This is a crucial component for strong Common App essays: you want to surprise the admissions reader, and one of the best ways to do that is by weaving these kinds of sub-themes into your essay, particularly towards the ending. In particular, those endings, those reflections, are a great place to say, “Look, not only is this essay about theme or major theme A, it’s also about sub-themes B and C.”

Tension

Last but not least, we have this tension between my father and my uncle. Clearly, my uncle is thrilled about me being in the restaurant, whereas my father is actually pretty disappointed that he has to call on me for help. In real life, my father has expressed disappointment in asking me to cook in the kitchen because it’s really brutal, menial labor. Again, none of this is explicitly stated in the essay, but you can see the kind of internal conflict I’m wrestling with as I try to grapple with the responsibility of my work. This too adds another layer or dimension to the essay. My goal was to make the piece feel authentic and emotional, but at the same time, I didn’t want to write a sob story. So, the different dimensions add more realism and dimension to the piece. 

My Mistake

Moving on to the number one problem with this essay. Looking back on it, the biggest failure of this essay is my failure to answer the question, “What do you bring to a college campus, and why do you want to go to college?” 

Every Common App essay should try to answer these questions in one form or another. In my reflection, I’m able to talk about my growth, but I never explicitly explain how this will translate to my impact on my future community. Obviously, college admissions readers know that going to college will benefit you, but they need to know how you going to their college will benefit them. 

Conclusion 

I don’t think you understand just how badly I want you all to succeed—especially all the first-gen, low-income boys and girls out there. I am rooting for you so, so hard. If you enjoyed this article and essay, please share this knowledge with your friends and classmates. Let’s do this together — I believe in you!

Your virtual big bro,

Kevin Zhen