Hi all,
So, I have been working to hammer out these secondary applications and there is one essay question that keeps coming up that I am having trouble coming up with an experience to write about. This would be the adversity or challenge question. I have been wracking my brain to try and come up with appropriate topics to write about for this essay as I haven’t really experienced much in the way of adversity in terms of situations that were completely out of my control that are worth mentioning.
1. The first topic that came to mind was my experience as a summer school tutor for my former high school. I had just graduated high school and thought this would be a good way to earn money needed to survive the first year of college. Basically, in this job I worked ~35 hours a week, one on one with summer students and gave supplementary instruction on whatever lesson they were on in whatever class they were in summer school taking. Basically, my position existed because of a funding shortage for summer school prevented the school from hiring enough teachers, so classes were overcrowded, and teachers couldn’t give students enough one on one attention. Many of the students were understandably very upset about being in summer school, and often would take their frustration out on the teachers and other tutors at the school for the first month. I think I could use this to write about how I coped with a stressful situation and managed to continue in a professional manner despite frequent un-cooperativity and verbal abuse (along with one threat of violence while I was there) from the students during the first month there. I also learned a great deal about the backgrounds of the students I tutored and some of the circumstances that contributed to them ending up in summer school. I learned that by trying to see their perspective and empathize with them really helped me connect with my students and break through these initial hostilities that impeded my tutoring them. By the end of the first year I did this I ended up really enjoying it and came back to do it for two additional summers. Because of all this I think this experience would be a fertile topic for a significant challenge essay, but don’t know if it fits for an overcoming adversity prompt.
2. I’m a first-generation college student and trying to navigate the college application process was daunting to say the least. I ended up just applying to a few instate public schools as my family could not provide a financial contribution to my college education and I needed to ensure that I could have my college covered with some combination of academic scholarship/federal loan/summer job. I don’t know if I really feel that I overcame any adversity in being the first in my family to attend college as there weren’t any large obstacles in my way aside from not having many people knowledgeable about applying to college to talk to and ensuring that I did well enough in high school to get the scholarships I needed to pay for school.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated and let me know if I am completely off base on the types of situations that med schools are looking for.
So, I have been working to hammer out these secondary applications and there is one essay question that keeps coming up that I am having trouble coming up with an experience to write about. This would be the adversity or challenge question. I have been wracking my brain to try and come up with appropriate topics to write about for this essay as I haven’t really experienced much in the way of adversity in terms of situations that were completely out of my control that are worth mentioning.
1. The first topic that came to mind was my experience as a summer school tutor for my former high school. I had just graduated high school and thought this would be a good way to earn money needed to survive the first year of college. Basically, in this job I worked ~35 hours a week, one on one with summer students and gave supplementary instruction on whatever lesson they were on in whatever class they were in summer school taking. Basically, my position existed because of a funding shortage for summer school prevented the school from hiring enough teachers, so classes were overcrowded, and teachers couldn’t give students enough one on one attention. Many of the students were understandably very upset about being in summer school, and often would take their frustration out on the teachers and other tutors at the school for the first month. I think I could use this to write about how I coped with a stressful situation and managed to continue in a professional manner despite frequent un-cooperativity and verbal abuse (along with one threat of violence while I was there) from the students during the first month there. I also learned a great deal about the backgrounds of the students I tutored and some of the circumstances that contributed to them ending up in summer school. I learned that by trying to see their perspective and empathize with them really helped me connect with my students and break through these initial hostilities that impeded my tutoring them. By the end of the first year I did this I ended up really enjoying it and came back to do it for two additional summers. Because of all this I think this experience would be a fertile topic for a significant challenge essay, but don’t know if it fits for an overcoming adversity prompt.
2. I’m a first-generation college student and trying to navigate the college application process was daunting to say the least. I ended up just applying to a few instate public schools as my family could not provide a financial contribution to my college education and I needed to ensure that I could have my college covered with some combination of academic scholarship/federal loan/summer job. I don’t know if I really feel that I overcame any adversity in being the first in my family to attend college as there weren’t any large obstacles in my way aside from not having many people knowledgeable about applying to college to talk to and ensuring that I did well enough in high school to get the scholarships I needed to pay for school.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated and let me know if I am completely off base on the types of situations that med schools are looking for.
