Facing the Music: College Admission Essay Sample

One day I was playing piano, lost in own musical universe, when I was interrupted by a faint tapping sound not of my own making, accompanied by a superficial fragrance. Tap, after tap, after tap. I stopped playing, turned around, and saw my mother standing next to the piano, tenaciously applying her compact powder for what seems like the tenth time of the day. "You need to start using more make-up," she interjected. "It doesn't matter how talented you are. As a female, appearance is your most important quality." As per routine, I struggled to suppress an audible scoff, and returned to practicing my 'useless' talent.

Despite my mother's incessant attempts to sway me with her credos on cosmetics, I felt certain that playing music was, and would always be, superior to playing with make-up. Music allows one to see without sight, and feel without touch. It is a form of communication transcending time, an intrinsic and constant part of being human. How could any form of physicality eclipse playing music? Why would I knowingly waste valuable time and resources on futile attempts to avert the inevitable fading of physical beauty?

My views on the matter were intractable until one day when I found myself flicking through my mother's old scrapbooks. It was easy to see that she had always been scrupulous with appearances – even her scrapbook pages were kept meticulously crisp and fragranced. However, there was one particular newspaper clipping which, with its creases and rips, stood out from the rest. Across the top of the yellowed paper was a line of emphatic Chinese characters: "Beware of the Revolutionary Rebel in Your Community."

"That was written about your grandmother," my mother explained. "They banned anything that was considered Western, but that wouldn't stop her. They called her an anti-Maoist. Every day, she made sure her cheeks were red with rouge, just to make a point. She never admitted it though – she wasn't stupid. Reckless and brave, maybe, but never stupid." As she was speaking, I couldn't help but be moved by the admiration tingeing my mother's voice; her words painted a portrait of my grandmother, confined by the grey conformity of her society, but with cheeks as red as her desire to live on her own terms.

Fixated on defying my mother's wishes, I had previously never realized the similarities between music and make- up. How was my grandmother's use of make-up any different to my use of music? We both used our outlets as a way to transcend the mundane, to express using the best version of ourselves. Just as one can find solace and assurance in communicating through melodies and sound, someone can display a joie de vivre through makeup that is gutsy, daring – confident. Both music and make-up are self-empowering, and provide such a sense of security and freedom that no other external form of validation is required.

It seemed awfully hypocritical of me that I had prided myself on putting so much effort towards surpassing personal and worldly limitations, yet I was scorning somebody else's means to do so. If the purpose of an action is justified, I realized, who am I to criticize the act itself? Although I still take issue with my mother's claims about the central importance of appearance, seeing the world through my her and my grandmother's eyes made me appreciate the variety of means of self-empowerment that we all have and need to bring color to an otherwise monotonous world.