Courtesy of Brian Zhang
- My mother and I have a complicated relationship; she always showed love in practical ways.Although you aren't supposed to center other people in your college essays, I wrote about my mother.Admissions officers at Yale and Stanford both said they were moved by what I wrote.
"Promise me you'll never put me in a nursing home," my mother often says.
Since I was 12, my answer has remained the same: "Of course not."
It's a question she usually asks me whenever I talk about my work. I've been volunteering at senior centers for years, and now I'm studying medicine at Stanford.
My mother sees nursing homes as places where families set aside their pasts. I see them as spaces where people who have done the hard work of becoming can finally rest — and be celebrated.
Working through disagreements like this is where my vocation took shape. Over the years, the complicated relationship with my mother has taught me to see the world differently, and to let those differences deepen our love rather than drive us apart.
It's a story I've returned to often in my college and medical school applications.
I broke one of the cardinal rules of college applications for my mother
In writing our personal statements for something as defining as our education, college advisors often warn us not to center our stories on others. But I knew there was no way for anyone to understand who I am without knowing my mother.
In my Yale application, I wrote an essay inspired by something my grandmother once told me: My mother's life revolved around teaching me — the one person she couldn't live without — how to one day live without her.
The sentiment stuck with me because I didn't always understand the way my mother loved. It was protective, practical, and rarely spoken aloud. At dinnertime, there were topics I couldn't bring up, such as activism or relationships. Instead, my mother left little gestures like breadcrumbs to follow: a full bowl pushed across the table, a smaller portion quietly set aside for herself.
In that essay, I said that my mother is a selfless woman who swam tirelessly through currents just to afford me a breach into a better future. Her sacrifices teach me that there is profound strength in letting someone else wear the sequins and finding peace in watching from the bleachers.
Eventually, I also began to understand that her fear of nursing homes was rooted in a lifetime of dwelling in the shadows and not knowing where home is.
For my medical school applications, I once again went against convention
I opened my personal statement for Stanford by describing how much I wanted my mother to be there for all my college highs, how much I missed her during events like Family Weekend, and how this need to feel "seen" was a habit I needed to work on.
After all, I'm entering a career where care should never be expected to carry the weight of celebration. It certainly should not depend on whether I hold the same opinions as my patients.
Courtesy of Brian Zhang
In my personal statement, I explained that she hadn't shown up for my college events and ceremonies because of her demanding work schedule and her declining health. As time passed, I reconciled with this emptiness by thinking of the diversity of my future patients and how not everyone I treat as a provider will have a family by their side during their most grueling moments.
Now that I am in medical school at Stanford, my mom encourages me to improve my Spanish so I can better connect with patients in diverse communities as I vaccinate. She reminds me to think creatively about how to use my class presidency to increase wellness programming for my peers.
Writing honestly about my mother in this way opened countless doors
My Yale admissions officer told me she rated my application highly because of the genuine love I showed for my mother. A Stanford interviewer said the way I spoke about my mother reflected an emotional maturity and calling for service that assured him I was ready for medicine.
Writing about how I strove to understand my mother became the part of my applications that people remembered most.
However, I don't write about my mother because I believe that our relationship makes for a good story. I write about her because I have a feeling this is all going to go by really fast. There will come a day when I won't have my best friend by my side. There will be a chapter full of stories — of colleagues, patients, and strangers — I'll never get to tell her about.
She used to tell me to work hard in school so I would grow up to be nothing like her. I hope I fail.
Despite our differences, I want to be just like you when I grow up, Mommy.
