Code Switch In college admission, trauma is shorthand for Blackness
Apr 25, 2026
Aya Waller-Bey, a sociologist and former Georgetown admissions officer, studies how racial trauma is framed in college applications. She discusses patterns of Black applicants writing about hardship. She explains why families and schools push pain as proof of race. She explores how admissions read these stories and the wider consequences for identity and institutional practices.
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Applicant Rewrote Essay To Fit Trauma Template
- Aya Waller-Bey rewrote her college essay from a joyful acceptance story to one about trauma after advisors said selective schools wanted something more compelling.
- She described being told to emphasize hardship, resilience, and Black identity to appear legible to elite admissions committees.
Black Applicants' Essays Often Center Extreme Hardship
- Admissions essays from Black applicants disproportionately feature homelessness, parental mental health crises, sleeping in cars, and racial slurs compared with many white peers.
- Aya observed these narratives became templates for what readers considered compelling, shaping perceptions of Blackness as trauma-centered.
Teacher's Binder Taught Trauma As A Template
- A teacher kept a binder of exemplar successful essays and Dominic used it as a roadmap, noticing most winners wrote about trauma and single-parent households.
- That modeled disclosure of extreme hardship as the path to being seen as a competitive applicant.
