College Counseling at St. Margaret's

Mr. Chris Tokuhama is an admissions officer at the University of Southern California. This is the second piece he’s written for this blog. Here is a link to his first contribution.

There is, quite possibly, nothing like seeing someone finally get it.

I sat across a desk and watched as the student in front of me struggled to form the words that his heart longed to say.

Oh. OH! Ohhhh…

Success.

I had been invited to participate in an essay-writing workshop for a local school and found myself talking to students in various stages of their personal statements. Admittedly excited for this event, I had come prepared with highlighters and a red pen, but discreetly tucked them away within two seconds of meeting my first student. I quickly realized that what we were doing was not about the mechanics of writing—although that might have been a small part of it—as much as it was about a process. More specifically, for me, it was about a narrative process.

Anyone who’s heard any of my talks knows that I believe in the power of narrative. In many ways, I consider stories to be one of the fundamental ways that we have come to understand the world and ourselves. We are most familiar with this idea in the form of myths, legends, tall tales, fiction, lies, or movies—but what about the stories that we tell ourselves? What about the stories that define us? Every time we come to believe that we can or can’t do something (what the professionals would call “self-efficacy”), that we are or aren’t something, we are contributing to the narrative of our lives.

I am an advocate for people telling their stories and I deeply believe that people’s stories matter. Sometimes in our jaded lives, we come across those essay topics that have been used many times before and we feel that students don’t tell the right stories or tell their stories in the right way—but this does nothing to shake my belief that there is a story there somewhere.

This, ultimately, is why narrative and storytelling matters. Stories have the power to stop us from being complacent, to incite action, and to make us feel. In big ways and in small, we begin to realize that everyone has a story, that these stories matter, and that the people telling the stories matter.

Needless to say, this last statement came as a revelation to most of the students.

I challenged the workshop participants to listen to selections from StoryCorps, a non-profit that is attempting to compile the oral history of America. The important thing here, I argued, was to realize that average people have remarkable stories and that they could learn a thing or two from these strangers: all of the stories were engrossing, informative, and unique (quite possibly the jackpot of college admission essays).

One of the most amazing stories was an interview between a mother and her twelve-year-old son with Asperger’s. The interview started with some standard questions but the boy eventually got around to asking his mother if he met her expectations as a child (knowing that he had a disorder) and his mother simply replied he had exceeded her expectations beyond measure. I didn’t really anticipate any other answer, but the way that she said it was, frankly, astounding. This mother’s words were truthful, pure, honest, and full of love.

In the end, I think that this is what occasionally frustrates me about our applicants and their stories: they don’t get to this place of truth. Perhaps it’s the lack of words, or the lack of trying. Maybe some of them aren’t quite ready. In any case, it is infinitely maddening because I believe beyond all doubt that the story is there, waiting to be told. You want to tell kids that they’re already shiny and bright but they could be so much more beautiful than they are, because they could be so much more than they are. And they’ll get there, I guess—that’s what college (and the rest of life) is for. But, at the same time, you want to tell them to shine and to burn bright, burn clear, burn true, burn pure, and burn strong.

And, every once in a while, you see a student break through the pain and the doubt and the worry. You see a student overcome fear and imposed limits. Put simply, you see transcendence happen in front of you.

There is, quite possibly, nothing like seeing someone finally get it.