How to write a diversity essay for college

HHarvard's dean of admissions, testifying in the affirmative action trial, described the many forms of diversity his office sought and then named one that most applicants never write toward. Colleges phrase the prompt many ways: a place you call home, a community you belong to, the perspective you would add to campus. Families often read these prompts as invitations to describe a background, and so the essays describe one, sometimes beautifully. Readers in Stanford's admissions office were looking for something narrower and more useful. Whatever the category, a farm town, a faith, an immigrant household, a working-class family, a portrait of where you come from can leave a reader moved and still unsure why the faculty should want you. The strongest essays in this genre do one thing more.