Statements about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Although these prompts invite applicants to respond in any number of ways, students have found drafting this essay to be quite challenging.   

• Students from underrepresented or marginalized groups have shared their concerns about the kinds of essays that this prompt has generated over the years. 
  • Students have said, for example: “I’d like to write something, but I don’t want to tell a sob story. I’m not a victim.” 
  • These students are concerned that they are being asked to share their experiences through a lens of “difference” as a kind of spectacle. They fear that the institution will admit them only if they tell a story that members of a dominant culture might expect or want to see.  
• Given the landscape of higher education today, most students bring some kind of “difference” with them to campus. Nevertheless, students may not always realize the uniqueness of their experience, and some have approached this essay as if it weren’t meant for them.   
  • These students have said, for example, “I’m from a dominant group, and I come from a background with a lot of privilege. How can I possibly write a diversity essay?”   
• Applicants from countries other than the United States may not understand why graduate and professional schools have included this essay in their applications. 
  • These students may be unaware that the prompt is addressing a specific set of current and historical issues around race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender, and access in the United States. 

Because students’ experiences vary so greatly, advice about how to frame a life story in response to these prompts will be different for each student. Nevertheless, the following guidelines can assist you in drafting a meaningful response and avoiding pitfalls.

First, the prompts ask you to write about a diversity of experience, perspectives and beliefs – something that all applicants have. 

• • The question to ask is this: what is it about your particular experience, perspectives on life, or beliefs and values that you will bring to the graduate or professional school community to enrich the experience of those around you?
  • Examples of beliefs or values might include the following:
    • Do you value honesty (or another value), and do you have a story to tell that brings to life the role of this value in your life?
    • Do you have political beliefs that you have pursued by working in campaigns?
    • Do you have religious beliefs that have shaped how you view and contribute to your community?
  • Examples of experiences related to identity might include the following:
    • Have you lived as a racial or ethnic minority in the United States or in a country other than the United States?
    • Did you grow up in a rural community or area, perhaps one with limited access to healthcare or to opportunities for education and employment?
    • Do you have an identity related to your gender that might have required you to navigate challenging circumstances?
    • Have you experienced life as an immigrant? a displaced person? A refugee? 
  • Examples of experiences in your family might include the following:
    • Have you had a significant responsibility to care for siblings, nieces and nephews, parents, grandparents or other family members? 
    • Have you experienced a change in your family’s financial situation that has led you to view wealth and possessions from a new perspective?
  • Examples of service to a community might include the following:
    • Have you worked or volunteered in non-profit organizations that serve the community?
    • Have you taught or tutored children, adolescents, undergraduates, or older adults?
    • Have you participated in student government or in other student organizations?
    • Have you helped build community through a sports team, musical organization or similar group?
  • Examples of entrepreneurship, innovation or travel might include the following: 
    • Have you started your own business? 
    • Have you developed an innovative product or service?
    • Have you traveled or worked overseas, while learning and speaking the language(s) of the countries visited?
• Your task is to share your particular perspectives, beliefs or lived experience and to show how you will draw on these perspectives, beliefs or experiences to contribute to and enrich the graduate or professional school community.

Second, there is no pre-conceived genre – or type of story – that you are expected to write for this essay.  

• As an example, you do not have to write what is known as a “rags to riches” story or an “I was a victim, and I overcame hardships to reach this stage of my life” story.
  • In its simplest form, the rags to riches story reads like this:  “I come from a poor neighborhood. I worked hard, received scholarships, and did well, and now I’m applying to graduate school. I am a success despite my background” or “I am a success because I overcame the circumstances of my background.”  
  • Instead of a “rags to riches” story, applicants who have come from challenging backgrounds often write about the people who helped them along the way and about the applicants’ desire to give back (or pay it forward) to enable others to have a similar experience.
  • Thinking about a challenging life story in this way shifts the focus from the particular hardships to the giving and receiving that enabled the applicant to flourish and to the gratitude and generosity that are part of what the applicant will bring to a graduate or professional school,  
• As another example, if you have worked with people from a group that has been, or may be, viewed as underrepresented or marginalized, you do not need to write a story in which you step in as a “hero” and “save” them in some way or another.
  • Have you worked with veterans of the armed forces? people in prison? people with disabilities? families with food insecurity? people whose immigration status is a concern? elderly people in a retirement home?
  • Are you writing about your interactions with these people with cultural humility, with an understanding that, if you yourself haven’t walked in their shoes or in shoes similar to theirs, you won’t be able fully to understand their experience or their culture?

Third, as with the other essays that you may be drafting when you apply to graduate or professional school, you need to watch out for the following:

• Writing that is very dramatic.  
  • Applicants often write about difficult or challenging experiences in this essay. The basic facts of these experiences are usually more than enough to underscore the seriousness of the events described. Over-dramatizing an experience can actually draw a reader’s attention away from the experience. Too much drama can, counter-intuitively, make an experience feel “less real” to a reader than an event described in quieter language. 
• Content that suggests that an applicant is trying to come up with experiences to make the applicant appear “diverse” (or more diverse than the applicant is) and that may not speak to the core of who the applicant really is.
• Tone and language suggesting that an applicant is still reliving or struggling with an experience and hasn’t yet come to terms with it or worked it through
• A lack of awareness of the audience: is sharing a particular experience appropriate for an application to graduate or professional school?

To give you a sense of the kinds of essays that students have written, we are including the following examples (shared with the students’ permission):