The Rise of the "Trauma Essay" in College Applications | Tina Yong | TED

TED

The Rise of the "Trauma Essay" in College Applications | Tina Yong | TED by TED

Tina Yong discusses the harmful trend of "trauma essays" in college applications, where students are pressured to share their deepest traumas in hopes of appearing resilient and interesting to prestigious universities. The problem with this approach, as Yong argues, is that it can be detrimental to the storyteller and existing inequities in higher education. Moreover, universities can take steps to improve this situation by being more transparent about their admissions guidelines, avoiding prompts that put pressure on students to discuss past hardships, training admissions counselors to work with BIPOC individuals, and encouraging students to find their voice and use it.

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In this section, Tina Yong discusses the phenomenon of "trauma essays" in college applications, where students are pressured to write about their deepest traumas in hopes of appearing resilient and interesting to prestigious universities. Admissions counselors often amplify this pressure by influencing what applicants write about, and even offering tips on how to make an essay more striking. The problem with this approach, as Yong argues, is that it can be harmful both to the storyteller, who is forced to relive their trauma, and to existing inequities in higher education. Additionally, using an application essay to discuss trauma does not necessarily help the writer process their experience.

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In this section, the speaker discusses the negative impact of traumatic essays in college applications. Applicants are forced to relive their traumatic experiences and suppress their emotions during the process. This emotional burden can have detrimental effects, especially for young applicants who have not had enough time to process their experiences. Moreover, the demand for students to turn their pain into progress ignores the fact that trauma is not always an opportunity for personal growth. The trauma essay portrays a fundamental contradiction that restricts the writer's vulnerability. It constrains students' stories, forcing them to fit into narrow margins of what is marketable and acceptable. While universities do not explicitly ask students to share their trauma, the demand for these essays from admissions officers indirectly enables the rise of trauma essays and all their harmful implications.

00:10:00

In this section, the speaker suggests that universities can take steps to improve the situation with trauma essays. She suggests that universities should be more transparent about their admissions guidelines and restructure their prompts, avoiding putting pressure on students to discuss past hardships and, instead, refocus prompts on their goals for the future and academic interests. Admissions counselors should also be trained in working with BIPOC individuals and be trauma-informed not to pressure students to talk about traumatic experiences before they're ready. The speaker encourages students to remember that they are more than just the bad things that happened to them and should find their voice and use it. She also tells her personal story of immigrating to Canada and the pressure she felt to write about her journey as an immigrant rather than her achievements.

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