When I Dropped Out At 20, My Sister Told Everyone: “She’s The One Who Didn’t Finish.” Twelve Years Later, I’m Yale’s Dean Of Admissions. One Essay Read: “My Family Moved Past My Aunt’s Setback.” The Name? Amanda Chen. My Niece. I Picked Up My Red Pen And…

on my couch in New Haven with the pages on my lap and moved through the essay line by line, not as a dean evaluating voice and structure, but as the subject of a narrative I had not known was being written. Amanda had not sentimentalized me. That mattered. She did not pretend my life was glamorous or easy. She described the community-college-to-transfer continue reading …