Essay Test: Garbagewoman and Art, Truth and Beauty

The following two admission essays were submitted to highly selective colleges and universities.

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Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

We had run into my mother’s friend from college at the local supermarket. “Oh!” She stepped forward with a huge grin and pinched my little brother’s cheeks in adoration. “What a handsome boy!” She then turned to me, warm smile unwavering, and patted my head semi-sympathetically. “Don’t worry. You’ll become a big, beautiful girl someday.”

Ouch.

My little brother and I are vastly contrasting characters. I indulge in Marvel comics. He indulges in encyclopedias. I star as Celine Dion in the shower. He stars as the lead in his elementary school play. As a technological numbskull, I was still trying to figure out how to print from the printer at age ten. As an engineering prodigy, he was helping my father rewire computers at age eight. All in all, he is an impeccable circle. I am a dilapidated square. As a little girl constantly compared to her archetypal perfect younger brother, I came to detest uniformity at a young age.

Whatever he did, I would try to do better. Except, as every such story goes, you know that’s never how it works. He excelled in school, in acting, in engineering, and to add salt to the wound, could eat Five Guys on a daily basis without gaining a single pound. Some could argue that he was better at, well, life in general. But there was one thing that belonged to me and only me. One thing my germaphobic little brother could not touch.

My precious, beautiful garbage collection.

As a young child, I’ve never had a thing for playing doll house or racing mini plastic cars. My hobby was rather unique, an adventure inside and outside my dwelling, a constant stream of excitement waiting to unfold. I loved sorting through trash. Or rather, what others saw as trash. For me, they were colorful building blocks, unformed balls of fresh clay with a modest sheen and the musty scent of earth, waiting to be molded. Crinkled candy foil became bouquets of shiny flowers. Used electrical tape became macramé bracelets. Where others saw unusable, stained, broken, I saw art. The recycling bin was my muse. Garbagewoman was my superhero name.

By high school, my brother had gone on to building RC airplanes. I, on the other hand, had gone insane. Inspired by Project Runway, the local thrift store became my Mood. I bought and tore apart countless defunct three dollar dresses to combine with steel mesh and bent safety pins and grommets to form my own outlandishly imaginative Haute Couture collection. I’ve also earned a self-proclaimed medical degree in bottle dissection, the science of cleanly slicing beer and wine glass with rubbing alcohol, matches, and ice, a rebirth in fire into glittering mosaics and decorative candle holders. I folded, cut, layered, and seared plastic bags into delicate peonies, assembled into bouquets for mother’s day and corsages for homecoming. I even formed a symbiotic relationship with my little brother by collecting the broken circuit boards he discards in his engineering projects, employing the swirls of geometry and little metal knobs in my latest wire jewelry collection. Little by little, I found my own little niche amongst my family and my peers, not as my brother’s sister, but as That Crazy Art Child, the quirky artist who creates beauty from disrepair.

I don’t usually try to explain my weird fascination with trash. Perhaps I feel pity for those forgotten artifacts of sepia pasts, discarded for the newer and better. Perhaps I enjoy my modest version of playing god, of idealistic rebellion, of raising the dead in Frankensteinian amalgamations of unorthodox beauty. Perhaps I see myself in all their imperfections and potential. All I know for certain is that they have taught me to believe in growth, in transformation, in the idea that there is no futile action, no useless object- only unexcavated possibilities.

I am a square. A pragmatic idealist. An unconventional artist. Garbagewoman. 

I will never lose my edge.

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What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?

In a culture where photography is largely defined by high fashion magazine spreads and flawless models, I’d always perceived photography as a blissful release from endless sprints to endless finish lines, a #instagram filter for all our unsightly blemishes, a chance at perfection.

My perception was turned on its head by a series of mundane photographs of random people on the streets.

Blemish. Buck tooth. Crooked nose. No weightless silky hair, no diamond skin, no sparkling riptide eyes. Not beautiful, yet I was captivated. The marriage of the succinct, clever captions and down-to-earth faces felt so right. I couldn’t help myself- I devoured page after page of stories and raw emotions, young and old and black and white and joyous and sad.  These were the first pictures I’ve seen that were truly worth a thousand words.

Humans of New York.

The title stuck with me. Humans. Living, breathing people. Beings that surpass pixels on screens or diluted images on paper. Seemingly insignificant beings, each with their own imperfections, but also with glowing souls overflowing with stories. Smiles lined with seasons past, backs slightly bent but not yet buckled. Humans.

I stare at the uncluttered images framing complex histories that can never be completely unraveled. Seemingly straightforward, yet I am desperate to find out more.

Perhaps the essence of art lies not in what we do see, but everything we don’t see.

Beauty is only skin deep. Art is what lies beyond.

Questions

Rate each of these essays 1-5 with 5 being the highest. What ratings did you give and why?

Did the same person write these essays? Defend your answer.

Should students attempt to include humor as a part of an essay? Why or why not? Do you find the first essay humorous?

What words would you use to describe the tone of each essay? Are they the same?

How does tone differ from voice?

What can you determine about the background of the writer(s) of these essays?

Would the writer(s) add diversity to the campus based on these essays? Defend your answer. How do you define diversity?

Does having photographs of the writer’s garbage art help you to ‘see’ what she is talking about?

Should a writer use oxymorons and neologisms in an admission essay?

Should a student who writes about art uses the Coalition for Access and Affordability platform so she can include photos of her work in her virtual locker? (The Common Application does not have this option.)

Are the writers of these essays smart? Defend your answer.

Does the writer of either of these essays have a special talent? If so, what is it?

Would you want the writer of either of these essays as your roommate?

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I would like to thank Sara for letting me post photos of her art.