The next application is brought forth. A committee gathers expectantly for the performance. From between the lines, she emerges: painted red lips, pink cheeks, poofy tutu, perfected routine. She appears as she presents herself — a beautiful ballerina ready to enthrall her audience. The committee flips to the first question, reading, “Tell us about yourself. What are your passions? What are your interests? What makes you, you? Please answer in 250 words or less.”
She poises herself in the center of the page, taking in a steadying breath before settling into her opening pose. The show begins.
***
Who am I? I am the perfect person for this role. You can stop searching because I have all the skills, leadership and charm you’re looking for. Too cocky.
Unlike other applicants, my passions and interests lie solely in doing whatever it takes to be a part of this amazing organization! Too desperate.
On a cool October morning, I came into this world pissed off, crying and wanting to go back into the womb. Not much has changed since. Too honest.
Another application. Another slew of questions I still have no clue how to answer. How many more of these will I have to complete before I finally have my elevator pitch down? At this point, I’d rather cut the cables and free-fall six floors than try to answer these questions again. I can’t introduce a stranger, yet that is the task at hand.
I don’t know who I am, just who I’m trying to be. I, like most other students at the University of Michigan, have spent my entire academic career trying to be well-rounded, smooth. To be well-rounded, you become the best at things you don’t even care to be great at. We become afraid to let ourselves get prickly through failure and learn to avoid trying foreign things in case we rough up our skin. As a result, I’ve lived such little life and in attempting to boil it down for an application, I’m left with practically no substance to work with. I’m scraping an empty pot with my pencil, trying to find something worth showing off. I am encased in a perfectly well-rounded exterior, but when applications force me to crack this shell open, I must face the fact that I am hollow inside.
After college applications, I assumed I’d be free from this song and dance. Yet, as college students, we are bombarded with applications for scholarships, clubs, internships, awards, jobs, study abroad programs, housing and the like. We are constantly trying to cram our limbs, experiences and aspirations into a word limit that feels simultaneously too long and too short. Why is it 250 words anyway? Why not 251 or 249 or 1,000 or one? The number feels as arbitrary as the decision of whether we’re good enough.
In trying to craft an answer, I’m only left with more questions. I can’t introduce a stranger, but since I have to, I’ll make damn sure she sounds like the most impressive stranger one could meet.
***
She bursts from the page. Her long, fluid motions create beautiful lines that ribbon across the paper like liquid silk. Technically, these lines are not very complicated — demi pliés, elevés, a few tendus. But she dresses them up with the flick of her wrist, the baring of her smile, the flutter of a lash. And as she reaches the conclusion, stopping in first position, the room is enamored. The rosy shine of her costume glints in the committee’s pupils. They are so distracted by the lively motion of the sparkle that they can’t see she has stilled; she is frozen inside their idea of her, one that she will never be.
Nevertheless, Act 1 is complete. The committee’s shiny eyes prepare for Act 2. “What makes you qualified or a good fit for our organization? What sets you apart?”
***
I scroll, unimpressed, through my resume. Performances, volunteer work, sports, competitions, awards, jobs: a time capsule of all the badges I’ve snagged over the years. Any reasonable person would be proud to have all these accomplishments and yet that satisfaction evades me. Because I know I’m not the only one.
An average day on the University’s campus consists of obsessively refreshing Gmail inboxes and reading LinkedIn like scripture. Bags thumping against the sweaty backs of students rushing to and from the Central Campus Transit Center. The familiar crack of a can of Celsius being opened at 8:00 a.m. and chugged like water. In an environment like this, it feels like you must go above and beyond just to get on everyone else’s level. However, when we’re all equally impressive, no one actually is.
The threshold for success keeps rising as we strive tirelessly to leap over it; our applications depend on it. We must make it seem easy, the balancing act of all our classes, jobs and activities. We must show that we can do it all and then some. Or at the very least, we must pretend to.
***
She’s still going. Spin after spin, pirouette after pirouette. Each one becomes more impressive as it compounds on the last. Her steady gaze continually snaps back to meet the committee’s as they watch in awe. A living crescendo is growing before their eyes. She gears up for the final event, a grand jeté that spans the length of the page. Time stops as she leaps through the air, back curved so far inward. The committee swears she has no spine. The group jumps up in a fit of applause.
They are so captivated by the show that they don’t even notice how it ended. Plopped in the center of the page, she sits hugging her knees to her chest, trying to remember how to breathe. She looks so weak, so small, so impressive. So unready as she saw what was to come. “What is your definition of diversity? How has your experience with people of different cultural backgrounds shaped you?”
***
I thumb over the nuances of this seemingly neutral question, this coin toss. In an age of performative diversity and current executive orders to revoke diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, it feels as if minorities only have two paths when filling out applications. The risk of being rejected due to stereotypes or accepted as a token. Heads or tails? In or out? Nobody aspires to be tossed out, but to get in we must make ourselves sound valuable, shiny and easy to hold in the palm of a hand. I don’t want to succumb to this gilded narrative, but as I look backwards, I fear I already have.
From jobs, academic contests, scholarships and endless college applications, the recipe of these essays was always the same. Add one cup of minority experience — whether it’s being an African immigrant, a first-generation college student or a girl in a post-Roe v. Wade world. Then, slowly mix in a story of grit and perseverance in the face of such adversities. Be sure not to overmix, lest you lose the subtlety of your desirable diversity. Tweak the formula for the specific flavor of application. It’s a recipe that society gives minorities a taste for, then teaches us how to recreate for their enjoyment. And while it leaves a bad taste in our mouths, it satiates their hunger.
I fear that through sharing my cultural roots, I’ve left them vulnerable to being ripped out and lauded over by shallow diggers. Have I unknowingly allowed the tokenization of my experiences to play the strategic game of perfecting an application? But what can we say besides what we are? I don’t want to take these parts of me and separate them from me for the sake of pandering to a committee. Who can we be besides ourselves?
Every time I fill out an application, I ask myself what I should share, hide or alter. I remold my narrative around whatever the committee is looking for in hopes that I will be the best fit for them. But if fitting in requires losing parts of myself, maybe the question I need to ask is whether they are the best fit for me.
At the end of the day, this application will be due. And there will be another one to follow it. So what happens if I just present myself as I truly am — all prickly, rough, ambitious, confused and hopeful? I may very well get rejected. But at least now, the curtain will close and the lights will dim. The show will finally be over.
***
The final act starts. The committee’s blinking eyes watch tentatively from above, like blinding spotlights following her every move. But she trains her focus on her raised foot, pausing outside those rings of light that illuminate the page’s white face against her dark shadow.
She has done this routine a million times before. It is perfect. She is perfect. She has mastered the art of dancing around the truth, dodging the lights and playing her part. But as she stands there with her painted red lips, pink cheeks, poofy tutu, perfected routine, she feels herself becoming what she truly is — a clown trying to entertain a crowd.
She puts her foot down. Perhaps for the first time, she realizes she can. She is learning that a body was made to do more. And as she turns to leave, she finally faces the ink-stamped words displayed across the page.
“I am tired of dancing.”
Statement Columnist Oummu Kabba can be reached at oummu@umich.edu.
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