Context on this piece
Below is my College Application Common App essay I wrote in 11th grade as I was applying to colleges in Fall 2013. I was 17 years old and dead-set on getting into the University of Pennsylvania and applied as an Early Decision applicant. As a kid from a private school and privileged background, I knew my odds of being accepted to a highly selective school like Penn were low - on paper, my application was pretty undifferentiated from others like me. I had to write something that would help me standout, and do so in just a few hundred words. I chose to share something very honest and personal - my experience as the shortest kid in my class for most of my primary education. This piece remains my favorite thing I've ever written about myself. I didn't expect to ever share this on the internet, but t2 is bringing out the writer and me and I am committed to my team with Sammi, Mengyao, and Wanshu for Friends Who Write.
In the end, I was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania. It was the greatest experience - everything I could've asked for and more. As I reflect on my time at Penn, I can't help but feel how much has changed over the last decade since then - my priorities, interests, and perspective on the value of a college degree have all changed. But this piece is just as important to me now as it was when I wrote it. It is something I want to share with the Friends Who Write territory. I hope you like it.
My Common App Essay
I was the short kid. I may not be anymore, but for a span of seven or so years I was. Every school has one; you’ve seen us, you knew one of us, and maybe you were one of us yourself. It’s a role no one wants to be cast in, but it’s there, and it means you’re stuck with it until the day comes when you hopefully grow and shed that old skin. But does it ever really leave? Looking back eight inches ago, I now think that “the short kid” was the best role I was ever cast in.
From kindergarten through eighth grade, I spent much of my time on the baseball diamond. Athletics are often the first place your size becomes a factor. After you realize the discrepancy between the other kids and yourself, you quickly figure out that you’re going to need a special set of skills to succeed in a field where size seems to be the primary asset. As an Encino Little Leaguer, I pounced on the role of the contact hitter who could fire a short line drive into the highly underrated space behind the shortstop but in front of the centerfielder, the perfect bunter who caressed the ball just five feet down the third base line. I became the terminator pitcher.
Pitching is a skill where being small can be beneficial because you already stand an extra foot tall on the mound, and though you can’t blow a fastball past anyone, you can spend hours crafting a mean slider that leaves even the most powerful hitters swinging the bat like Neanderthals trying to swat a fly. As my ten-year baseball “career” came to a close, I began to realize that the baseball field was one of the most comfortable places I could be.
But things were far from perfect. Now a freshman and a boy among men, there was nowhere to hide. Fiery, angry, and looking for reasons why I was better than someone larger than myself left me feeling like an intellectually tall person trapped in the body of someone much smaller than I actually was. The semi-annual visits to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles-- where you’re poked and prodded like a science experiment, combined with parents arguing about whether or not to inject you with Human Growth Hormone, as well as the nightly chocolate Ensure supplemental drinks for senior citizens-- all contribute to the fear that you may never grow and that you’ll be five foot, eighty pounds forever. You’re always reminded that you’re different and something is wrong, and that despite your best efforts to be and do what you want, a big part of you is still small. The toughest moments though, were using my game face not to win baseball games anymore, but instead to convince everyone that I was happy and to make absolutely sure that no one knew what I was really thinking.
Then I entered 10th grade. The growth spurt I had dismissed long ago finally came. I started 10th grade at 5’4” and finished at 5’9”. I was HUGE! Well, kind of, but still. It was incredible. I was no longer the butt of casually uttered short jokes but a dating-eligible, normalish-sized teenager! It’s around this time that I came to terms with my experience as “the short kid.”
While I can now see eye-to-eye with many of my peers in a very literal sense, there’s a part of me that sees through the differences others appear to have and feels their experience. I know what it’s like to be different, to use humor as a defense mechanism, to be hyperconscious in a room full of people, but I also know what it’s like to triumph over those self-doubts, accept the outcomes of situations I cannot control, and just be content.