Sam just got into Yale—here's how 🎉
What a time of celebration it is here at The Dream School Project. 🙌
Last week, I got this text from one of my students, Sam:
It’s always such fun to dance around the room in celebration of my students’ hard work. 👏
AND, I know that the real question is this:
So how’d he do it? 🤔
Here’s his story . . .
When Sam was in 7th grade, he headed Inner Mongolia for what was supposed to be a fun, eye-opening cultural exchange program.
It all started with a 3rd degree burn in a tiny Mongolian village. He’d just arrived at a hole-in-the-wall hotpot restaurant when, as he wrote in his personal statement, “my friend nudges his pot and tips it over—flinging its scorching contents directly onto my lap.” He goes on:
When your skin is suddenly heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s a roaring, searing sort of pain that makes you drop everything.
Rushed to the hospital, he learned very quickly his condition was far worse than the doctors were equipped to treat.
The Hohhot “Hospital” consisted of a single floor, with one operating room and a handful of rooms for patients. The lights flickered; the doctors rationed antiseptic. Behind the thin curtain masquerading as privacy, new patients rotated through the other two bunks in my room, their whimpers keeping me up at night. The bedside seat sat empty—my parents were 7,000 miles away, the power lines too spotty to maintain even a phone call.
The hospital couldn’t treat the third-degree burns blanketing my legs, so I transferred to Beijing and later Philadelphia. After two skin graft operations, even the morphine drip and prescription opioids couldn’t silence my screams. The 3-week ICU spell and months of PT that followed were just as brutal.
Quite a story, isn’t it. BUT, before you think Yale requires a 3rd degree burn to earn acceptance, let’s look at what happened after this. Let’s let Sam tell it in his own words:
“But what if I stayed at that hospital in Hohhot?” I thought. “How much worse might it have been?”
Suddenly, the chasm between my worlds became very real. Statistics became people, misfortune became injustice, and indifference became compassion. In the time since, I’ve given myself permission to make my own dent in this world now, bridging the chasm wherever change is needed. Everywhere around me, I began working to make a difference. I was unstoppable. As a journalist, I rooted out corruption in nursing homes. As a lobbyist, I fought for international malaria aid appropriations. As a researcher, I dug into public health disparities. Through it all, I asked myself one question: What more can I do?
From this brief paragraph, it’s beautiful to see how Sam became unstoppable in his passion for transforming our healthcare system. Today his vision is to take this passion and bring quality care to the most remote regions of the earth.
In other words, he turned one of the most excruciating moments of his life into a catalyst for profound transformation, not just for himself but for so many stuck in Hohot-type hospitals.
In my next blog post series, I’ll be sharing more stories of how other students have created this transformation themselves.
So how do you do this yourself?
Until then, let’s look at how you might create a similar experience in your own life:
Start by asking yourself, “What are some of the most important moments in my life so far? Why were they so significant? What actions have I taken since then? Or what actions could I take?”
And then go and take the first step. Write that email. Send that text. Listen to that podcast. Seek out that teacher. Just do one thing today, and one more thing tomorrow . . . because that’s the only way to start to experience your truest joy, your truest purpose.
And THAT is what gives you the highest chance of getting a YES from your dream school. 🌟