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MistakenGenius wrote:I'd say no. Not because of you "playing the holocaust card", but because it's just a bad topic idea. Your grandfather sounds like an amazing man, and your essay would make me want to admit him, not you. It's a personal statement. We should be able to learn about you, not your family. Talk about a personal experience or something that shaped your own life, not something that transpired many years before you were born.

I second this. Unless you can tie your grandfather's story in as part of your own story - e.g. some moment where it critically changed your perspective and caused you to do x instead of y, or something like that - you shouldn't write about it.

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ymmv wrote:

MistakenGenius wrote:I'd say no. Not because of you "playing the holocaust card", but because it's just a bad topic idea. Your grandfather sounds like an amazing man, and your essay would make me want to admit him, not you. It's a personal statement. We should be able to learn about you, not your family. Talk about a personal experience or something that shaped your own life, not something that transpired many years before you were born.

I second this. Unless you can tie your grandfather's story in as part of your own story - e.g. some moment where it critically changed your perspective and caused you to do x instead of y, or something like that - you shouldn't write about it.

To be fair, the OP said "I was thinking i could simply mention his experiences in Poland briefly, before moving on to the real substance of his effect on me, etc. "


If you're worried about whore'ing out your grandfather's experiences for the sympathy card, I think you'd be the best judge of that. Traumatic events, including those that occurred to those close to us, can have a tremendous impact on our lives. People talk about the divorce of their parents, deaths in the family, being abused, etc. I talked about the time I saw some dude beat the shit out of his gf/wife in public. One of my best friends in law school wrote about how his grandparents were put in japanese internment camps.

That being said, I don't think its necessarily bad per se, but you need to be careful 1) you're not riding off your grandfather's experiences, and 2) you have a sufficient, rational "reason" to be affected by his experiences. You just have to be careful that it sounds believable. It's not firsthand-experience, its not firsthand-witnessed experience, but its "empathy for someone else for something that occurred before I was even born." I think the further away you get from direct impact, the less believable it seems.

Cradle6 wrote:I understand where you're coming from.

I thought of the same thing, but countered by the fact that he (and by extension his experiences) have had a huge effect on who I am and my own goals in life.

Knowing him has had a tendency to affect your perspective on life.

Though it could come off as just praising him without illustrating me even if done well

If his story occupies more than, let's say, 1 paragraph of your 2-page PS, I'd say that's probably too much. You barely have time to tell your own (salient) story, let alone someone else's.

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Cradle6 wrote:I understand where you're coming from.

I thought of the same thing, but countered by the fact that he (and by extension his experiences) have had a huge effect on who I am and my own goals in life.

Knowing him has had a tendency to affect your perspective on life.

Though it could come off as just praising him without illustrating me even if done well

Write a draft and post it.

I think it could be promising.

Ps is to show who you are, doesn't have to directly say why law.