What are “Lived Experiences” vs “Exeriences”

[Anonymous]

Interesting. I was never in foster care, but had rotating foster siblings most of my childhood. Does that make the things I learned not my experience since they were via my foster siblings? For instance, I wasn't the one sent home for a weekend visit who came back with bruises from abuse, but I certainly was there, saw the bruises and emotions of my foster sibling, and watched my mom fight the system to try to keep the kids safe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I was never in foster care, but had rotating foster siblings most of my childhood. Does that make the things I learned not my experience since they were via my foster siblings? For instance, I wasn't the one sent home for a weekend visit who came back with bruises from abuse, but I certainly was there, saw the bruises and emotions of my foster sibling, and watched my mom fight the system to try to keep the kids safe.

So the watching, and the making-sense of what you saw, and the dawning awareness of what was happening, that has since cemented into a more concrete understanding of the world, was your lived experience. That would make a powerful essay.

Also, I'm very sorry you had to see that. Truly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I was never in foster care, but had rotating foster siblings most of my childhood. Does that make the things I learned not my experience since they were via my foster siblings? For instance, I wasn't the one sent home for a weekend visit who came back with bruises from abuse, but I certainly was there, saw the bruises and emotions of my foster sibling, and watched my mom fight the system to try to keep the kids safe.

So the watching, and the making-sense of what you saw, and the dawning awareness of what was happening, that has since cemented into a more concrete understanding of the world, was your lived experience. That would make a powerful essay.

Also, I'm very sorry you had to see that. Truly.

Please don't feel sorry for me. I had a family. It's the kids who came through the system who need support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I was never in foster care, but had rotating foster siblings most of my childhood. Does that make the things I learned not my experience since they were via my foster siblings? For instance, I wasn't the one sent home for a weekend visit who came back with bruises from abuse, but I certainly was there, saw the bruises and emotions of my foster sibling, and watched my mom fight the system to try to keep the kids safe.

So the watching, and the making-sense of what you saw, and the dawning awareness of what was happening, that has since cemented into a more concrete understanding of the world, was your lived experience. That would make a powerful essay.

Also, I'm very sorry you had to see that. Truly.

Please don't feel sorry for me. I had a family. It's the kids who came through the system who need support.

Understood. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't have to be a sob story, people. Just write something about your family or neighbors or anything outside of school. An essay about board game night with your uncles works just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A “lived experience” is how you’ve moved around in the world. For example, if you’re a white, straight, middle class male, your “lived experience” is likely one where you’ve enjoyed a multitude of privileges and very few road blocks such as discrimination. You’ve likely never been profiled in a store or stopped by the police simply because you’re walking down the street. The images and role models of success that have been in the media since you were born have mostly looked like you.

An “experience” is just that. It’s a one-time event. An example might be that you were mugged on the way home and it caused you to think differently about your life in a profound way. Or maybe you had the “experience” of volunteering in a homeless shelter and learned things about yourself.

No one is trying to “get around” the SCOTUS decision. If you’ve read it, you’d know that Roberts laid the groundwork for this approach. Colleges want a student body filled with diverse experiences, and there’s nothing illegal about soliciting information about its applicants as they build their next incoming class.

Your example of lived experience is off, because you describe the absence of specific experiences other people have had as a lived experience; what you have described is negative space. The "white, straight, middle class male" you imagine has a lived experience of his own. You don't write a lived experience in terms of what you have not experienced, let alone apologetic for not having experienced life in a certain way; you write what you have lived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A “lived experience” is how you’ve moved around in the world. For example, if you’re a white, straight, middle class male, your “lived experience” is likely one where you’ve enjoyed a multitude of privileges and very few road blocks such as discrimination. You’ve likely never been profiled in a store or stopped by the police simply because you’re walking down the street. The images and role models of success that have been in the media since you were born have mostly looked like you.

An “experience” is just that. It’s a one-time event. An example might be that you were mugged on the way home and it caused you to think differently about your life in a profound way. Or maybe you had the “experience” of volunteering in a homeless shelter and learned things about yourself.

No one is trying to “get around” the SCOTUS decision. If you’ve read it, you’d know that Roberts laid the groundwork for this approach. Colleges want a student body filled with diverse experiences, and there’s nothing illegal about soliciting information about its applicants as they build their next incoming class.

Of course they are. The court mentioned this was fine but it’s being used specifically to get around the prohibition of just asking about race and using that as a factor in determine to admit or not.

That’s why these essays on this topic are all after the court’s ruling.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/8/3/harvard-admission-essay-change/

https://nypost.com/2023/09/30/how-colleges-are-skirting-supreme-couts-affirmative-action-ruling/amp/

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2023/07/10/will-essay-prompts-get-students-after-affirmative-action

[Anonymous]

My immediate response is that the schools want to hear from the student. They have read so many essays that are written by parents and massaged by the many who proofread.
The take away is let your kid express who they are. Admissions people are not stupid and they can spot your little fraud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My immediate response is that the schools want to hear from the student. They have read so many essays that are written by parents and massaged by the many who proofread.
The take away is let your kid express who they are. Admissions people are not stupid and they can spot your little fraud.

+1

I have seen a few dozen and it is really obvious when people are cutting onions to work up some tears.

If your kid has any sense they'll just write something about getting a puppy for Christmas. Anything in their honest voice will do.

[Anonymous]

Asking for your "lived experience" is just code for tell me how you're a victim. It sickens me that this is what colleges are looking for. No wonder young people see themselves first and foremost as "oppressed victims" rather than independent, strong, smart, capable human beings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A “lived experience” is how you’ve moved around in the world. For example, if you’re a white, straight, middle class male, your “lived experience” is likely one where you’ve enjoyed a multitude of privileges and very few road blocks such as discrimination. You’ve likely never been profiled in a store or stopped by the police simply because you’re walking down the street. The images and role models of success that have been in the media since you were born have mostly looked like you.

An “experience” is just that. It’s a one-time event. An example might be that you were mugged on the way home and it caused you to think differently about your life in a profound way. Or maybe you had the “experience” of volunteering in a homeless shelter and learned things about yourself.

No one is trying to “get around” the SCOTUS decision. If you’ve read it, you’d know that Roberts laid the groundwork for this approach. Colleges want a student body filled with diverse experiences, and there’s nothing illegal about soliciting information about its applicants as they build their next incoming class.

Of course they are. The court mentioned this was fine but it’s being used specifically to get around the prohibition of just asking about race and using that as a factor in determine to admit or not.

That’s why these essays on this topic are all after the court’s ruling.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/8/3/harvard-admission-essay-change/

https://nypost.com/2023/09/30/how-colleges-are-skirting-supreme-couts-affirmative-action-ruling/amp/

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/admissions/traditional-age/2023/07/10/will-essay-prompts-get-students-after-affirmative-action

That's not "getting around " the SCOTUS decision, but working within the framework of the decision. Get it?

[Anonymous]

“Lived experience” = made up BS that cannot be verified and proven or disproven.

Experience = things that actually happened, where you were or what you did, can be proven or disproven.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Lived experience” = made up BS that cannot be verified and proven or disproven.

Experience = things that actually happened, where you were or what you did, can be proven or disproven.

In my experience, that's not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I notice some schools are asking students to wax poetic now about their “lived experiences” in college essays, perhaps as a way to get around the Supreme Court rulings on race-based admissions.

Either way, what is the difference between “lived experiences” and other “experiences” that a high school kid is likely to have by age 17? Are “lived experiences” different in nature? And does this this just encourage kids to write about how their identities are fundamentally shaped by their race, gender, sexuality, and socio-economic status? Is there any room to believe in universal values or to arrive on campus ready to learn rather than simply ready to signal?

It means that they know the day to day details of say, living in poverty, versus reading about it in a textbook.

[Anonymous]

Are you really so dead set on insisting these essays need to be disaster por*?

They don't. Not at all.