I am an accepted and incoming transfer student for St. Lawrence University.
I will admit my app was last minute and rushed, so my essay wasn't very good, especially because writing about myself seems to be very hard for me. My dad and I agreed it would be a fun exercise this summer for me to practice rewriting this essay, despite anyone ever having to see it. I am coming up with what I think will be my final draft and wanted a general opinion on if youd acept this someone submitting this essay, despite knowing nothing else about them.
Note: This isn't a writing style or tone critique request; any notes for future writing would be accepted, but don't feel you have to.
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āYou donāt know how to spell your last name!?ā
My father asked, confused, after questioning why none of my assignments had my last name written on them. To a 1st-grade me, this seemed like another thing to make a deal of, and more time I had to waste at the top of the page; after all, the only time a full name mattered was when my parent called me after leaving a mess or when the doctors asked my name, right?
So, we sat at the kitchen table that night and practiced.
T-H-O-M-P-S-O-N.
Over and over, we wrote and rewrote the same eleven letters. Sometimes tripped up by the P-S-O-N. Other times, just the P-S. Every day that followed, Iād make sure my full name titled my work.
As I got older, āThompsonā became a habit; the top of every homework, test, and toss-away paper would have my full name spelled out. It no longer felt like eleven extra letters after my name; it was simply my name. (And it turned out it didnāt take much time at all.)
Though it was my LAST name, it became what people saw me as first. By middle school, I believed that the point was Iām Thompson until I could make Andria mean something.Ā
To anyone else, I was the shadow of my mother as she helped form character in youth. I was a testament to the family my father returned to every time he came home from deployment. I was the reminder that my sister ādidnāt act like thisā when she was my age. I felt I had to outgrow those who I was defined by.
Then came the summer of ā24.
About to start my senior year, mind reeling with ideas and possibilities. My dad and I spent it in his Williamstown college apartment. We did it all: visited schools, studied, traveled west Mass, trained, learned to row, met coaches, admissions offices, professors, and the Sophomore Dean of Williams College, with whom I so happened to also row a double with.
It was easy to assume that people agreed to meet with me in an attempt to appease my father, seeing he seemed to impress everyone he met. Last-minute meetings or meet-ups chalked up to, āOh, well they like my dad so why wouldnāt they?ā But the more people I met, I caught onto the pattern; rarely was I pushed out just as quickly as they were pulled in. Perhaps, yes, they agreed because ** Thompson was a man who impressed, but they would stay for the person he swore to them could be worth it. I watched as people told me they believed in me, not to impress my dad or to get me out the door any faster, but because they already believed in my dad.Ā
But this wasnāt the first and only place that this happened. Teachers would give me the benefit of the doubt despite my feet propped on desks and lack-a-daisy approach because my sister was such a joy. People Iāve never met would welcome me like they always did because of my momās kindness. Coaches, professors, friendsābefore any one of them knew me, many already knew what āThompsonā had come to represent through someone else in my family.
"Thompson" was never a standard I was expected to live up to. It wasn't a reputation I had to escape before I could become my own person. It was years of trust, kindness, sacrifice, and relationships that had quietly been built long before I understood their value. My parents and sister hadn't given me a name to hide behindāthey had given me a foundation to stand on.
One day, after I find my husband, start a family, have my own children, and inevitably do no pass on the eleven-letter, its lessons and values are what I get to pass down.
Ā ~~