How My Immigrant Background Became My Admissions Superpower

By Linh Tran (not his real name), First-Generation Vietnamese-American Student

When I started my college applications, I was convinced I needed to erase parts of myself.

I didn’t grow up speaking English at home. My parents fled Vietnam after the war and never finished high school. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment in the back of my uncle’s bakery, where the smell of bánh mì and fresh dough became part of my childhood. I worked the counter after school, folded egg rolls on weekends, and translated letters from the bank for my parents at age 13.

None of that felt like something colleges wanted to hear.

So at first, I tried to sound like a “typical” American student. I focused on my AP classes, my science fair award, my internship at a local lab. I wrote drafts of my personal statement about wanting to become a doctor — not because I didn’t mean it, but because it felt like what I was supposed to say.

But it all felt flat. Generic. Like I was writing someone else’s story.

Everything changed the day I connected with a peer coach — someone who’d been through the same journey and was now thriving at a competitive university. Her name was Naomi, a Cambodian-American student who grew up in a neighborhood not so different from mine. She asked me one question that turned everything upside down: “What are you proud of that has nothing to do with school?”

I told her about helping my mom sew reusable masks during the pandemic, and how I set up an online ordering form using Google Sheets so the neighbors could safely get groceries from our bakery. I told her about how I started a YouTube channel to teach Vietnamese kids how to pronounce tricky English sounds, because I knew the embarrassment of being laughed at when you mispronounce “pizza” as “pita.”

Naomi smiled and said, “That’s leadership. That’s initiative. That’s resilience. Why wouldn’t you lead with that?”

For the first time, I saw my background not as a burden to hide, but as evidence of character.

She helped me revise my essays — not just for grammar or style, but for authenticity. I wrote about the pressure of being the oldest daughter in an immigrant family, the unspoken expectations to succeed, and how that fueled my drive — not just to achieve, but to represent. I wrote about the balancing act of two cultures, of growing up watching Vietnamese dramas and Grey’s Anatomy in the same night, and how it shaped the way I think, adapt, and connect.

More importantly, she helped me rethink how I presented myself. I didn’t have to apologize for not having fancy summer programs or a polished resume. I had something else: lived experience. And that mattered.

When the acceptance emails started arriving — from schools I didn’t even dare to dream of six months earlier — I realized something powerful: being a first-generation immigrant didn’t hold me back. It propelled me forward.

Now, as a first-year college student, I’ve started volunteering as a peer advisor myself. I work with students from Burmese, Laotian, Hmong, and Filipino families — each with their own versions of my story. I remind them what I had to learn the hard way: your background isn’t a liability. It’s a lens. It gives you insight, empathy, and drive that no test score can measure.

So if you're like me — if you’re navigating college apps with one foot in your family's culture and one foot in a system that was never designed with you in mind — here’s what I want you to know:

Your story is enough. Your experience is valid. And your voice deserves to be heard.

Because what I once saw as obstacles were actually the qualities that got me here — and they might just be your superpower too.