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…

somewhere in the middle—genuinely poor, genuinely determined, and too inexperienced to know where grit ended and self-erasure began. On the worst nights I would sit on the floor of that tiny apartment with the radiator clicking in uneven bursts and open my banking app just to stare at numbers that seemed almost satirical. Eighteen hundred dollars had continue reading …