Matt recently sent me his college essay, an essay headed to the Admissions Department at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts; he is applying early decision. With his permission, here is his essay.
Strangely, I am thankful for my difficulties with reading. In middle school, when I tried to read, my brain would shut down. I could manage a page or two before I either got too tired to keep going, or would realize that I had been daydreaming. I understood that dyslexia made it harder for me than my peers, and I thought I was dumb. I was afraid to read aloud in class because my mistake rate was high: about one per sentence. I made mistakes like reading coincidence as consequence and unanimous as unanimate, which isn’t even a word. I also skipped little words like “not,” completely changing the meaning of a sentence. I truly believed that I wasn’t smart and that I never would be; and, while I was miserably trying to understand the characterization of Buck in Call of the Wild, some of my classmates were getting by on Sparknotes. As tempting as that was, I kept reading the books.
My parents and I decided to start working with a learning specialist. JoAnna and I began meeting in 7th grade because I was an “unremediated dyslexic.” It took almost a year of working together before I accepted that she could actually help me improve. Jealous that my friends were having fun in study hall, I was reading syllable sheets with JoAnna: “Bang Fang Rang Hang Sang Fang Sang,” words repeated in a randomized order, and I had to read as many as I could in sixty seconds. I am thankful for the work JoAnna and I did together on my reading because it taught me two valuable skills: how to read and how to be productive when I would rather be elsewhere.
As high school began, my toolbox included reading strategies that helped me sound out unfamiliar words, so I read with more fluency and accuracy. Feeling a bit more comfortable reading in class, I projected Poseidon's wrath from The Odyssey like I was on stage. Noticing that I’d caught up, my friends started to make throwback jokes: “Matt’s having a dyslexia attack,” and the less original “Matt can’t read.” I know that these are only jokes; so I find them funny and have learned another valuable skill: to laugh at myself.
With a handle on my literacy, I felt capable for the first time. I even began to enjoy the suspense of reading about the relationship between Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre. This was at the point of 10th grade when I also began reading the Wall Street Journal. I do my best to read three or four articles a day because it’s interesting, and I want to be an even more competent reader: just trying to get my 10,000 hours in.
As reading fluency work began to pay off, I found myself in a world of opportunities that had not seemed feasible in the past. I petitioned the school so that I could take three honors classes, instead of the school’s two honors class limit. I now have the free time to pursue an independent study: a Naturalist Certificate– a certificate of concentration in the sciences.
I am grateful that JoAnna believed in my potential and pushed me, before I believed in myself, because now I am a proficient reader. If I hadn’t had access to the tools I needed, who knows how I would have turned out? Would I still feel hopeless in school, or just miserable while reading? Dyslexia does not define me, but the struggle has made me the determined, resilient, and can-do person that I am.
Isn’t it wonderful? It made my heart sing and as we talked about the essay at dinner last night, Russ and I each pondered what we might write about ourselves. In a short essay, how would we describe something unique about ourselves, some profound impact on our life? Where to start?
I decided to give it a try, but first I had to whittle down 65 years and find one topic, one defining impact on my life. Matt found a defining voice of triumph. Even before beginning, I felt that if our two essays were side by side, his would be granted the one admission slot.
Two defining joys in my life are my siblings and the impact Mom had on my life. Grateful thanks to them all, but this is for Mom.
I believe we each have a penchant to be pessimistic or optimistic. I think there is a flow, a melding of the two. I had two mothers. My maternal mother died of heart failure at the age of 34, when I was only 8 years old. I vividly recall the morning I found my dad and 2 brothers, chiseled together as one, slumped and crying on the kitchen floor. My mother had died during the quiet hours of night and I stood outside that male bonding to figure things out on my own. That of course was an 8 year old perspective.
Several years later Mom came into my life; the fixer of my sad soul, a believer that I was more then my immediate self. She saw hope where others saw failure. She came into my life and became my champion, soothing a little girl's heart and making her feel hope for the future.
On my first visit to her home for an overnight and to spend time with my futures siblings, she surrounded me with inclusion, I was not a guest, but a part of that little family. My little girl mind thought “this might work!”
From that day forward she stood up for me. In the turmoil of my mother dying, my father remarrying, gaining 2 sisters and a brother, moving to another town and another life style, finding new friends and being the uninvited new girl in the 6th grade, I was confused. There was even a 'club' in that 6th grade, a subliminal 'I Hate Linda Liston' Club. To join, you pasted a 45 album cover photo of I Want to Hold Your Hand by the Beetles onto the brown paper bag cover of your geography book. I went from a school with few expectations to one with high standards. I went from a school with many friends to fighting my way towards friendships. Mom was my rock.
That 6th grade year shattered my grade average. At that young age I became a failure. The following year Mom marched herself right down to that Jr. High, right into the principal's office and told him, with me as a witness, that they had better consider all I had been through and be kinder, show some empathy and be encouraging. In those years the school had ‘tracks’ and the school had shuttled me right to the bottom saying I would not likely make it out of high school. Mom said “you better be sure she does, she’s amazing and you’d better see that potential and foster it or you will have to deal with me!”.
Mom saw and captured the unique opportunity to make a difference in my life. Truly, because of that Jr. High experience, I moved into my high school years confident that I could achieve. She walked with me through my anguish, becoming my constant and helping me process a way forward. She helped shape the way I walk through life. She showed me that my way was not always the right way, but neither was anyone else’s. She showed me that we each have gifts to share and by nurturing them, we can flourish.
Mom had confusions in her own world, but she always made sure I knew I mattered. I am grateful for each day she was in my life. She took 8 confused people, 2 adults and 6 children, and somehow melded them into a family who loved and cared for one another.
Her impact on my life engulfed me, changed me. I wish every person had such an advocate. I am blessed. I am grateful.