Student story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

- I wrote about our family trip to visit Cambodia, where my parents are from. I talked about visiting the landfill there. At that landfill, there were dozens of families scattered all over the landfill scavenging for pickings and stuff like that so I talked about that. I talked about how it made me realize my parents sacrificed a lot. It made me realize what it's like in Cambodia and how fortunate I am to be in the position I am where I can go to college. I talked about how they helped me and they inspired me and they gave me all these opportunities. I talked about what I do at college and how I wanted to make the most of what I was given because it was a gift for me to be able to grow up in America and go to college. I decided, "You know what? "I'm gonna write about what I feel is true and what I feel the most strongly about." That was it and I guess the colleges liked me because I got every one of them, every one that I had to submit an essay to accepted me for it.