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Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 9:43 am
by Anonymous User
Ask anyone in my family about our history and they will not hesitate to regale you with tall tales. From feuds with Judge Roy Bean, to hiding out in the mountains with Pancho Villa, to adopting my great-great grandmother from a razed Lipan Apache village in northern Mexico, our oral history comprises a veritable cross-section of the Tejano experience. My grandfather would have you believe that a [Family Name from Location] was present for every pivotal event in Texas history, akin to some sort of Mexican Forrest Gump.
We are somewhat less impressive now. My grandfather is a mechanic, not a vaquero. We have always considered ourselves Mexican-Americans, but have gradually become more and more Anglicized. “Antonio” is called “Tony,” “Arturo” is called “Art,” and “Gonzalo” somehow became “Hank.” When compared to my more senior family members, my skin is distinctly pale and my Spanish is remarkably poor.
A few months ago, I asked my aunt why we had not had our most recent family reunions in Del Rio and Acuña as we had when I was a child. With more than a hint of wistfulness in her voice, she said that the old guard of Mexican [Family Names] to whom I had made my childhood pilgrimages had passed, one by one, back into the Earth. In my boyhood, journeying to the sun-scorched dirt of my forebears had seemed to be as exotic a destination as any foreign country. I returned this summer and it felt different. Maybe something like coming home.
Just a quick draft of what I will hopefully be submitting this fall. Would really appreciate any kind of feedback. Would this possibly be better as a diversity statement? Yale doesn't ask for one, but I've heard that some people submit one anyway. If I were to do that, I would probably write the 250 about a personal hobby.
Re: Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 9:57 am
by J90
Just my two cents, but all I got out of reading this was that you're Mexican and you like it, though you didn't realize the family of yours that remained there had passed away.
This paper should develop you, not your ancestors. This is your chance to make yourself seem compelling, intellectually curious, and so on. They should be interested in you as a person after reading it. This doesn't do that for you.
Re: Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:50 am
by wjones451
Anonymous User wrote:Ask anyone in my family about our history and they will not hesitate to regale you with tall tales. From feuds with Judge Roy Bean, to hiding out in the mountains with Pancho Villa, to adopting my great-great grandmother from a razed Lipan Apache village in northern Mexico, our oral history comprises a veritable cross-section of the Tejano experience. My grandfather would have you believe that a [Family Name from Location] was present for every pivotal event in Texas history, akin to some sort of Mexican Forrest Gump.
We are somewhat less impressive now. My grandfather is a mechanic, not a vaquero. We have always considered ourselves Mexican-Americans, but have gradually become more and more Anglicized. “Antonio” is called “Tony,” “Arturo” is called “Art,” and “Gonzalo” somehow became “Hank.” When compared to my more senior family members, my skin is distinctly pale and my Spanish is remarkably poor.
A few months ago, I asked my aunt why we had not had our most recent family reunions in Del Rio and Acuña as we had when I was a child. With more than a hint of wistfulness in her voice, she said that the old guard of Mexican [Family Names] to whom I had made my childhood pilgrimages had passed, one by one, back into the Earth. In my boyhood, journeying to the sun-scorched dirt of my forebears had seemed to be as exotic a destination as any foreign country. I returned this summer and it felt different. Maybe something like coming home.
This does read really well, so I compliment you for that! But I also agree that you need to develop yourself a bit more in the essay; talk about your academic experiences and why you'd be a good candidate. In the absence of this, it doesn't really seem like an admissions essay at all. Also, this is probably my own ignorance, but is there a word limit on personal statements? Is this 250 word thing something separate?--because it seems like it would be difficult to do the whole job of a personal statement in 250 words.
Also I think there are a few grammatical things in the first paragraph. You need a comma after "history" and before "and" in your first sentence. You then go into a "from" blank "to" blank construction, but it doesn't really seem the most appropriate use here. Typically the construction is used for just two extremes. So if you want to keep the construction, I would say something like: "From feuds with Judge Roy Bean and hiding out in the mountains with Pancho Villa, to adopting my great-great grandmother from a razed Lipan Apache village in northern Mexico," so that you avoid using "to" twice.
Anyway, I hope this is helpful and good luck!!!
Re: Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 12:59 pm
by oxie
I like your tone and writing style and I think this has a lot of potential, but I agree that it felt like there's not quite enough of you in it right now. I come away with a good sense of what the Americanization process has looked like for your family, but I don't quite know how you feel about it, what you're doing about it, why you've chosen to highlight it, etc. I think you're sort of trying to address how you fit into this process at the end, but I think that could be developed more (although I know it's tough given the length constraints).
I think it's hard to judge the appropriateness of a Yale 250 without knowing what the rest of your application is going to look like.
This YLS blog post talks about the importance of having a multi-faceted application -- depending on what your PS, LoRs, etc look like, this may or may not be your best approach to the 250. Per
this blog post, I think YLS is open to diversity statements as long as they don't rehash other parts of your application, so you might want to think about using this as your DS and highlighting something else in your 250.
Re: Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2014 6:36 pm
by Anonymous User
OP here.
Thanks for all the feedback. I think I will take the advice and expand this into a diversity statement. I think I have a pretty decent alternative topic for the 250 that would work better within the length constraints.
EDIT: On second glance the way I presented it makes it seem like I was unaware of my relatives' passing until my aunt told me. Just to clarify, I knew they had died, but I didn't fully realize until that conversation that their passing meant I was almost completely severed from Mexico (I still have a few extended family members on the border, but enough have died so that our reunions now take place completely in the US). I will definitely make that clear in the future. Thanks for pointing it out!
Re: Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2014 12:37 pm
by Nebby
This reads like an assimilation story with a sad tone; probably not the best feeling for the AdComm to feel.
Re: Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 3:47 am
by flomotion
I really enjoyed this! It has a rather sad, wistful tone (as people have said before me), but I think it's a great vignette of your ancestry. It'll be really challenging fitting something greater than a vignette in such a small amount of space, so I'm not sure whetehr you can add too much about yourself to this while maintaining the flow. If you want to make it more about yourself, it might be worth it to make this your diversity statement, and do something else for the 250.
Re: Early draft of Yale 250
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 7:39 am
by Ave
I agree with others: there needs to be more about you. And even though it reads well, etc., that does not mean that you should keep this draft - or have your final one be similar to this.
I thought this read like the introductory paragraphs to the main story. Your 250 should be the main story.