How Realizing I Was Poor Helped Me Write Great Admissions Essays

by Beat The GMAT, Jun 8, 2011

The following guest article is by Kaneisha Grayson, the founder of The Art of Applying.

It took me a long time to realize that I was poor. I made it all the way to the 10th grade, in fact, before I realized that my family wasnt a member of the middle-middle class.

I want you all to go home and ask your parents what your socioeconomic status is, my high school teacher told us one day. We were learning about class in America, and a PBS documentary we had watched claimed that the overwhelming majority of Americans claim that they are middle class. You see, everyone cant be middle class. There are rich people, there are poor people, and there are people in the middle. And it seems that we Americans have collectively decided that the middle can be split up into its own sandwich as wellwith a lower middle, middle-middle, and upper-middle class. Basically, in America, we have a whole lotta middle for the taking. But my question is: Since when did it become so great to be in the middle?

This post is how I learned that my family wasnt in the American middle-middle class, and how that realization was a huge benefit to me.

Were middle class, right? I asked my dad that evening, wondering about my teachers strange assignment.

Um, not really, my dad replied. Were more like lower middle.

My head snapped to look up at and examine my dads face. He was not kidding.

Are wepoor?! I shrieked, as if hed revealed that my family members and I were not flawed and hopeful Earthlings but astute and clinical Martians here for a brief observation visit.

We arenot poor, my mom interjected loudly from the other room.

No, we were not poor. Poor is the way my dad grew upno inside plumbing until he was 5, picking oranges as a child farmworker in the sticky, suffocating Florida heat whenever he wasnt in school, thrashing about in a room, jaundiced with a mysterious illness for weeks. That is poor. We were lower middle class, as my dad had put it.

The next day, I carried my realization that my family was lower middle class around with me like a Faberge egg that I feared would break if not handled with the utmost care.

When asked to share about our experiences discussing class with our parents, I eagerly revealed my egg: My family is lower middle class, and then other classmates shared their revelations as well. Many peoples parents had stuck with the middle-middle label, but some peoples parents had confessed to being outright rich! That simple exercise ended up being a delightful discovery and acknowledgment of our difference. We were already classmates and friends, so our newfound awareness of our differing classes did not drive us apart; it brought us together. We were not going to be the invisible middle-middle. We were poor, lower middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy.

Once I realized that I wasnt living a regular middle-class life, I started to see all the creative ways I had overcome challenges. When it came to time apply to college, I had a treasure trove of stories of all the ways I had avoided the psychological tranquilizer darts of the ghetto, and how that scrappiness was sure to serve me well in the new environment of college and beyond. My college essays werent just beautifully woven sad stories; they were stories of triumph, tales from the elusive place where adversity meets ambition, and results in transformative experiences.

When I decided I wanted to go to business school, I made sure to remember to step out from the middle-middle, and turn my differences into assets. Yeah, I was too young, too inexperienced, too outspoken, and too right-brained. But what I had going for me was my awareness that I was different, and thatbeing different can be good if you know how to learn from others and are willing to use those differences to help others learn.

Once, a group of my HBS classmates pulled me aside and told me that some people dont take it well when I say that I never doubted I would get into HBS.

We know what you mean, but it comes off as bragging to other people, they said gently, hoping I would understand where they were coming from, and maybe stop saying such brazen things in class. (Dont worryit was a leadership class where it was okay to share personal feelings and non-professional experiences.)

However, what I mean when I say that is when HBS launched what is now the 2+2 program, it was clear to me that they were seeking to admit people who were different than who usually chose to apply to the school. They werent looking for diversity for the sake of diversity; they were looking for the kind of diversity that questions the status quo, makes people a little uncomfortable, and results in new ways of approaching old problems or different ways to approach new problems. When you think of it that way, someone who knows how to balance not being in the middle-middle with enjoying being around those who are would do well and enjoy a place like HBS. That was me at 22 (the age I was when I applied).

Thus, my advice to you is to figure out what things about you are not in the middle-middle, figure out how to highlight those parts of yourself, turn them into assets to your MBA candidacy, and remember to connect that to how youre going to use it to learn from and teach those who are in the middle-middle for that particular characteristic.

You may have been adopted, the son of political refugees, a full-time employee in your familys failing business, trying to save a siblings life, or a desperate housewife wondering when youll get your turn to shine. Whatever it is about you that may seem like a normal, ho-hum part of your life but is actually really amazing when you think about it from someone elses perspective is where you want to dig for gold.

Its not about exploiting your status as a minority, discriminated group, or downtrodden people. Its about acknowledging that youre different in your essays and interview, and pointing out how you can make that difference work for youand for everyone else in your academic community.

Dont worry if you feel like you dont have anything that makes you seem really, really interesting. You do. Youve just gotten so used to being you that youve forgotten that an outsider would be wide-eyed if you told your story without the familiarity youve attached to it throughout the course of your lifetime.

The next time you find yourself outside of the middle-middle, celebrate! And then get to writing. Youve got a top b-school to get into.

P.S. I used the word middle so many times in this post that I began to question if it was really spelled that way. See what happens when you begin to reallysee the middle for what it is? It starts to seem foreign, absurd, unfamiliar! Keep it that way.

Kaneisha Grayson is the founder of The Art of Applying, an MBA and Policy School admission coaching firm which focuses on coaching non-traditional students. She graduated from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School in 2010.