Worried about appearing privileged...

[auferstehen92]

I'm tempted to write about the challenge of adjusting to boarding school for a secondary essay, but I'm hesitant to highlight the fact that I was privileged enough to have this opportunity. The experience was incredibly formative, especially considering I moved to the East Coast from a rural state at a very young age. What do y'all think? Is this a no-no...

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[DNC127]

Sucks that political correctness and all the wahoos who scream "privilege" everytime somebody is better than them at something have driven us to this point. Dude(et?) if this is something that was challenging, changed you for the better, and you can write a killer essay about it then do it! Don't listen to the haters who are going to try and make you seem like less of a person just because you parents could afford to give you a good educational opportunity. You are privileged to have parents who can provide for you and thats OKAY.

 

[jqueb29]

Any adcom member who would hold being "privileged" against you is somebody who doesn't belong on an adcom.

 

[auferstehen92]

Ok...thanks for your input And I just realized I posted this thread in the wrong place, so I apologize for that haha

 

[masaraksh]

This isn't the ****ing premed forum

 

[Mansamusa]

Sucks that political correctness and all the wahoos who scream "privilege" everytime somebody is better than them at something have driven us to this point. Dude(et?) if this is something that was challenging, changed you for the better, and you can write a killer essay about it then do it! Don't listen to the haters who are going to try and make you seem like less of a person just because you parents could afford to give you a good educational opportunity. You are privileged to have parents who can provide for you and thats OKAY.

Okay, so OP is the one worried about sounding too privileged. No one screamed privileged and probably no adcom would. If OP started complaining about how substandard his education was or writes about what a struggle it was to be around poor people or something that makes the OP sound spoiled, then people will scream privilege, but otherwise adcoms won't care. And obviously adcoms aren't on the lookout for calling out privilege or the med student demographic composition wouldn't be what it is now. Adcoms only ever use "privilege" to put a student's academic record into context anyways....

OP, like I said above, you don't lose points for privilege unless you are saying something egregiously snobby. However, I would make sure you write this essay well. It is similar to the "struggle going away to college" essay, which could easily sound superficial and juvenile. If you have good and meaningful points to discuss, it could be a good essay

(And adcoms will already know where OP went to hs, so if they are judging him for that then they will judge him no matter what he writes)

 

[Crayola227]

I'm the most silver-spoon hating doc around on the block and I can tell you, if you wrote a good essay, I could look past my bias

yes docs have biases, good ones know about them and try to keep an open mind anyway, and try to keep them from hurting people that are good

in my experience, there are more good docs than bad even though I think we're all ass holes in our own ways
and the ones on adcoms see a wide range of experiences represented

to create a diverse class, they need broke ass mutha****as, frat kids, boarding school kids, maybe some musicians
they're on the lookout for all types

I give you the if you follow the advice about approaching the topic well

 

[Crayola227]

Ok...thanks for your input And I just realized I posted this thread in the wrong place, so I apologize for that haha

ignore the poster that cursed about it, you realize wrong forum, it's OK, we all make mistakes

welcome to SDN!

 

[Goro]

This is the best you can do? Oh, the troubles of the 1%!!!

Reject time!

I'm tempted to write about the challenge of adjusting to boarding school for a secondary essay, but I'm hesitant to highlight the fact that I was privileged enough to have this opportunity. The experience was incredibly formative, especially considering I moved to the East Coast from a rural state at a very young age. What do y'all think? Is this a no-no...

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

This is the best you can do? Oh, the troubles of the 1%!!!

Reject time!

Wow harsh!

 

[auferstehen92]

This is the best you can do? Oh, the troubles of the 1%!!!

Reject time!

Pray tell, dear Goro, have I offended thee?
I am not the entitled patrician you would make me out to be.
Your unfounded accusation
'tis mere empty provocation
So I think I'll be so kind
as to pay you little mind

 

[mehc012]

This is the best you can do? Oh, the troubles of the 1%!!!

Reject time!

I mean, it's basically the "adjusting to college" theme only OP happened to move away from home earlier. I certainly had a hard time with such a drastic, sudden change in environment when I started undergrad, and I was used to moving around a lot as a child. School environments where you live with all of your peers and classmates are a particular kind of challenge beyond simply moving or starting a new school.

 

[doctorleospaceman]

What the challenge was matters much less than how you dealt with and overcame it.

 

[Goro]

Nobody, and I mean nobody leads a charmed life. The prompt is looking not only for resilience but for the ability to introspect. We're not interested in childhood woes. You'll come off as both privileged AND clueless.

Pray tell, dear Goro, have I offended thee?
I am not the entitled patrician you would make me out to be.
Your unfounded accusation
'tis mere empty provocation
So I think I'll be so kind
as to pay you little mind

 

[tyler_durden]

Pray tell, dear Goro, have I offended thee?
I am not the entitled patrician you would make me out to be.
Your unfounded accusation
'tis mere empty provocation
So I think I'll be so kind
as to pay you little mind

Idk about your boarding school response, but definitely don't reply to any secondary prompt with a poem

 

[CantStop_WontStop]

My $0.02... think of some event in the past that really caused you to question or contemplate life and then write about the emotions you felt during that process, how you dealt with them and the actions you took to overcome such event, and whether or not you think you handled it correctly. But ultimately how it motivated you to be a mature adult that can handle future hardships while accepting responsibility and the ability to learn from those hardships to become a better person. If all you have is moving away to boarding school then so be it, but there's most likely something you're not thinking of, as I've yet to meet anyone from Pleasantville or the Brady family.

IMHO I think adjusting to a new school environment (especially one that is served up on a silver platter) is less of a challenge and more just being forced out of your comfort zone, which is just the natural process of childhood development whether privileged or poor.

 

[mehc012]

My $0.02... think of some event in the past that really caused you to question or contemplate life and then write about the emotions you felt during that process, how you dealt with them and the actions you took to overcome such event, and whether or not you think you handled it correctly. But ultimately how it motivated you to be a mature adult that can handle future hardships while accepting responsibility and the ability to learn from those hardships to become a better person. If all you have is moving away to boarding school then so be it, but there's most likely something you're not thinking of, as I've yet to meet anyone from Pleasantville or the Brady family.

IMHO I think adjusting to a new school environment (especially one that is served up on a silver platter) is less of a challenge and more just being forced out of your comfort zone, which is just the natural process of childhood development whether privileged or poor.

How is being forced out of your comfort zone not a challenge? Isn't that practically the definition of a challenge?

 

[auferstehen92]

Nobody, and I mean nobody leads a charmed life. The prompt is looking not only for resilience but for the ability to introspect. We're not interested in childhood woes. You'll come off as both privileged AND clueless.

Ok, fair enough, although I'm getting very conflicting answers...I'll definitely try to come up with something more genuine.

 

[auferstehen92]

My $0.02... think of some event in the past that really caused you to question or contemplate life and then write about the emotions you felt during that process, how you dealt with them and the actions you took to overcome such event, and whether or not you think you handled it correctly. But ultimately how it motivated you to be a mature adult that can handle future hardships while accepting responsibility and the ability to learn from those hardships to become a better person. If all you have is moving away to boarding school then so be it, but there's most likely something you're not thinking of, as I've yet to meet anyone from Pleasantville or the Brady family.

IMHO I think adjusting to a new school environment (especially one that is served up on a silver platter) is less of a challenge and more just being forced out of your comfort zone, which is just the natural process of childhood development whether privileged or poor.

Thank you so much for this response!!! It just helped me decide on a topic I had completely overlooked and would be perfect for this prompt.

 

[CantStop_WontStop]

How is being forced out of your comfort zone not a challenge? Isn't that practically the definition of a challenge?

Yes, I think every challenge forces you out of your comfort zone but not every instance of being forced out of your comfort zone is a challenge worthy of writing about... which is why I said I think he/she should definitely use it if that's what he personally believes was his most worthy challenge, but IMO if he digs a little deeper I'm willing to bet there might be something better, or at least a specific angle on the moving away story that might provide a more noteworthy response.

 

[mehc012]

Yes, I think every challenge forces you out of your comfort zone but not every instance of being forced out of your comfort zone is a challenge worthy of writing about... which is why I said I think he/she should definitely use it if that's what he personally believes was his most worthy challenge, but IMO if he digs a little deeper I'm willing to bet there might be something better, or at least a specific angle on the moving away story that might provide a more noteworthy response.

This I could get behind wholeheartedly!

For some people, adjusting to school could be a challenge on that level for them. However, the fact that a social situation which most people weather normally is so difficult for you in the first place, while valid (again, it was for me) may not be the best thing to advertise in your app anyway. So it's really a lose/lose situation for this topic...either you have better options to write about, or you start to imply that you struggle with social adjustments. Best to go with something else.