Introspection
Skating Beyond Legacy Lines
You can only circle an area so many times before the joy dulls into monotony.
Ryan Introspection 3
Ryan stands with Kenneth B. Morris Jr. before a Belfast mural of his great-great-great-grandfather, Frederick Douglass.
Ryan Introspection 1
Ryan with his parents and younger brother, Alan, at a cousin’s wedding reception earlier this spring.
A Senior’s River Run
Ever since I got to Harvard, I’ve wanted to make my time as “normal” as possible to correct for the abnormality in my path to this institution.
Learning to Fail
Is it vulnerable or honest about the reality of being at this school? Or is it playing to an aesthetic standard of what a Harvard student is supposed to be: personality, friendships, and academic success, all in one? These performances feed into a perception, however misguided, of students at Harvard and other elite universities as universally capable and flawless super-students, without even the possibility of failure.
Trauma Plotting
I wanted to appeal to admissions officers in the way that my classmates were — by writing about our trauma — without really exposing myself.
Balancing Act
How do I reconcile these complicated histories with the kind of future I’m aspiring toward?
Personal Statement
Even after filling up a notebook and a half, I didn’t know myself at all, and I certainly couldn’t know myself in 650 words.
Taking the Bait
College admissions for selective institutions have no longer become a competition of test grades or grade point averages, but a race to the bottom to demonstrate prodigious authenticity.
