My Unconventional Corset: College Admission Essay Sample

I grew up with pictures of Philips Academy Andover plastered on my bedroom walls, closets, and shelves, each meticulously clipped from the 20 alumni magazines whose contents I knew by heart. When my acceptance letter arrived in my freshman year, I could not contain my ecstasy – which was in direct proportion with my subsequent disappointment when my idiopathic right rotary scoliosis prevented me from enrolling.

When I was diagnosed at the age of ten, the severity warranted surgery, which was extremely dangerous, since any damage to the constellation of crucial nerves around the spine could result in paralysis. The high risks led me to reject the surgery and opt for a full body back brace, physical therapy, and swimming in the hopes of improving my condition to within a milder range of curvature and inconvenience.

Enduring the pain of pressurized air-bags compressing against my spine in 100 degree Taiwan weather for eighteen hours a day was actually relatively easy. Even the extra hour and a half I spent practicing my spinal exercises each day (and my inability to find hoodies to conceal the hump my back brace created) were a breeze compared to my struggle with the unfairness of it all.

After repeated rotations of distress, I finally recognized all this not as a matter of being happy despite my scoliosis. Nor was it a matter of self-acceptance, like I once thought, because acceptance implies consenting to something external. It was wrenching to consciously decide to give up my childhood dream, to forfeit the reward after working so hard for it, but doing so peeled my eyes away from the prize in front of me. It obliged me to mature.

Little by little, I began to appreciate the qualities I had acquired unconsciously: the will to sacrifice present comfort for the sake of future security and the persistence in committing myself to a treatment that guaranteed no results. Unlike the chirpy concept of “hard work equals success”, the road to recovery, like most endeavors in life, cannot be described with such a linear equation. I learned, instead, to enjoy the opportunity to invest the effort in the first place. Thus, no specific event triggered my final internalization of my medical condition. It was a gradual process that started with acknowledging my limitations after yet another discouraging X-ray that revealed no improvement in my triple curvature. Such acknowledgement does not induce complacency but rather, sharpens our focus on what we can control.

Of course, it is not easy to believe in the promise of better times ahead, but I recognize that faith in hope is a conscious choice that lays the foundation to happiness.