College 101
Common App 1: Background and Identity
The Prompt
Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
The Essay
Intro
I have never danced. I have never run. I have never jumped. I'll never climb a mountain, or even stairs. I'll never go scuba diving. Barring some incredible medical breakthrough, I will never do any of these things. Sometimes the list of things I will never do stretches for so long, it would probably break some people.
I had my first surgery when I was three hours old. I'm up to over sixty now. Most people have a regular doctor. I have a regular surgeon. In some ways, my body is consistently trying to break down, and I am doing everything I can to keep that from happening.
I suffer from spina bifida, a disease that has confined me to a wheelchair as soon as I was old enough to get around on my own. I can't walk, I need shunts, bags, and devices to keep me alive, yet sometimes, my biggest problem is that this is all people see when they look at me.
Body
Handicapped people have to put up with a lot, and it starts with the beginning of this sentence. "Handicapped" is a fine term. I find it clinical. "Disabled" is also fine. When a walking person decides that I am in fact "differently abled," it makes me feel small. Condescended to. These shortcomings are not mine; they belong to the disease. I don't have to be insulted on top of everything else.
Though my daily life is a struggle, it does not mean I want help. Many times, walking people will go out of their way to hold doors and the like for me. While I appreciate that their hearts are in the right place, sometimes the only thing I have to hold onto is the simple. Opening that door for myself shows me, shows the world, that this is one thing I still can do. There is nothing more belittling than a walker asking if I need help, and conversely, nothing more empowering when they ask if I want it.
I am a normal high school student. I have favorite TV shows. I play video games. I like to read. I have a basketball team I root for and one I hate. I enjoy dating. Please don't take this as a license to ask how, as that's a question I get much too often and I'll be forced to give one of the sarcastic answers I've prepared. I do not exist for the inspiration or education of others. I'm a human being. A normal high school student.
I am not my chair. Though this is the first (and oftentimes the last) thing people see of me, it is far from the whole story. I am a complete person. I lack the ability to do certain things most people take for granted, but this is not the whole of existence. It is a piece of me, an undeniably important piece. It cannot be ignored, nor does it encompass me.
Conclusion
I have been enduring hardship before I knew there was hardship to be endured. My true struggle is a strange one and something of a paradox. I am disabled, but I want the freedom to be so. I don't want special treatment beyond what my body demands. It is not something I can escape as part of my identity, but nor is it the whole of my being.
Spina bifida has been an integral part of my story since I was born. Though most will not know it by name, they will acknowledge it within seconds of seeing me: wondering why I am in the wheelchair, and wondering what I can and can't do.
I want the opportunity to show that what I can truly do has nothing to do with the wheelchair. It has no relationship to the disease, beyond what it has taught me about resiliency and perseverance. I want the world to see me by my name, and not the contraption I use to get around.
Why This Essay Works
This essay is uncommonly frank in its discussion of disability. The writer's honesty is refreshing in a topic that usually is not discussed in open conversation, or else disguised in polite euphemism. The writer explains how they feel in their normal life, and how the rest of the world, the walking world, can be unknowingly complicit.
The body of the essay moves into the central idea. The student is used to being identified by their disability, and to an extent, can understand the impulse. What truly bothers the writer is the idea that the disease will serve to define them. "I am a person," the writer is saying, "know me as me, not as the worst thing I have to put up with."
It's a powerful, humanizing statement to make. The writer is, in fact, emphatically arguing against special treatment. They are abrogating the supposed societal benefit of what happened in exchange for being just like everyone else. This is an extraordinary desire, and one that shows an uncommon level of self-reflection. Sometimes honesty really is the best policy.