Work with populations unlike the applicant question

[johhnybravo]

---

Members don't see this ad.

.

 

[LizzyM]

you could say, "...at ___ College which is predominately Black (44.4%) and Hispanic (46.6%)." if you have the space to add that detail.

 

[LucidSplash]

IMHO you should come up with something other than just the color of the students' skin. Socioeconomic status might be something to consider or if there was a large portion that were recent immigrants? Otherwise would stick with the disabled part. They're now necessarily different from you because they're skin is different.

 

[Sardinia]

@johhnybravo You should put a disclaimer in bold red letters that in no shape or form are you making the connotation that black and latino students are predominately disabled.

 

[johhnybravo]

.

 

[LizzyM]

IMHO you should come up with something other than just the color of the students' skin. Socioeconomic status might be something to consider or if there was a large portion that were recent immigrants? Otherwise would stick with the disabled part. They're now necessarily different from you because they're skin is different.

If you think that the only difference among different ethnic/racial groups in America is skin color, you are ignorant of differences in culture and you need some more exposure to people who are different from yourself. Dietary preferences, wedding and funeral customs, accents and speech patterns, etc, etc. just to name a few.

 

[johhnybravo]

.

 

[Sardinia]

@johhnybravo I think the epitome of the essay is to assay a negative control. You aren't going to impress any member of a medical school admission team to the point where they feel like your multiculturalism is so on point that they must accept you as a candidate. If Martin Luther wrote an essay bragging about his work on protestant reformation, then they would critique the specificity of his work on just religion. If Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an essay bragging about his work on civil rights, then they would critique his decision to dabble in civil rights when he had an influential platform as a baptist pastor. Being a perfectionist when it comes to the essay portion can be a flaw if you are trying to "win" the essay. Essentially the approach you come up in addressing the question is more representative than the message of the essay in and of itself. As with everything I type, I am not an admissions committee member of any medical school, take all my advice with a grain of salt.

 

[DokterMom]

How about "Tutored [developmentally ?] disabled students at ___ College which is about 90% Black and Hispanic."
It might make sense to mention the nature of the students' disabilities also.

 

[LucidSplash]

If you think that the only difference among different ethnic/racial groups in America is skin color, you are ignorant of differences in culture and you need some more exposure to people who are from yourself. Dietary preferences, wedding and funeral customs, accents and speech patterns, etc, etc. just to name a few.

Of course LizzyM. I don't think that, I was replying based on the way the OP posed their question (ie asking if they should simply note the predominant races attending the place at which they tutor). But I also happen to be someone that thinks that race addressed in this fashion (ie just saying hispanic or black) is a very poor surrogate for ethnic/social/ideologic diversity and that's what I was trying to get at. Perhaps I did not do a good job of communicating that but I don't think my post suggests that I think the difference is just skin color.

Based on the way the OP posed their question, I thought it was too superficial a treatment of the essay question stem which is why I suggested other indicators of difference such as socioeconomic status or immigration status (which was not meant to be an exhaustive list, simply some possible ideas). I myself am blonde and caucasion but as I grew up basically poor white trash in the northeast and I am now a physician living in the southeast; I interact with other caucasions daily who have totally different perspective/experience than I do based on different backgrounds based on socioeconomic status and region of the country and that's what I was trying to communicate to the OP. Similarly there were minority students at my (overly expensive private small liberal arts) college who came from generational American affluent families in the UES of NYC and blended pretty much seamlessly on a cultural level with the caucasian students of similar background but were counted as "underrepresented minorities" for admissions purposes and I always thought that was odd because it mostly only addressed skin color and I don't think that represents true diversity. My apologies if my previous post didn't convey that level of complexity in my thought process. I was trying not to write a novel. 🙂

 

[johhnybravo]

.

 

[LizzyM]

Based on the way the OP posed their question, I thought it was too superficial a treatment of the essay question stem

It's not an essay question, it is a description of an experience. It doesn't require more than 30 words.

 

[LucidSplash]

It's not an essay question, it is a description of an experience. It doesn't require more than 30 words.

Fair enough, tough to get more complex with 30 words, I was reading the OP and link as topics for admissions essay questions.