How to lose a scholarship in 650 words or fewer:

Winning a full-ride was once the crux of my existence, my raison d'être. Now it is an increasingly distant, yet still painful memory. Below you will find my admission essay, a short essay I once assumed was incredibly shoddy because it failed to win me the full-ride I once thought I deserved. May other animal rights activists succeed precisely where I failed.

“Why do we eat pigs and not dogs?” I asked.

“Because pigs are fat,” Nicky replied.

Reflecting on this fact, I continued. “Why are pigs fat?”

“Because we breed them to be.

“Why do we breed pigs to eat them?“

I don’t know; that’s just the way things are.”

So I continued this dialectic conversation with Nicky, a current WashU graduate student pursuing philosophy. After explaining carnism, the invisible, potent ideology that conditions us to eat certain animals, but not others, Nicky asked me a question.

“Why do you want to attend WashU?” he prompted.

Pausing to gather my thoughts, I replied. “I want the best education possible. Fortunately, I can receive the education I have always dreamed of without even leaving my hometown of St. Louis. Indeed, WashU is the one university I have spent my entire community college career striving toward. In this pursuit, I have pushed myself to the limits, working over 80 hours a week for this one opportunity.”

Gesturing to the pristine campus surrounding us, I continued. “WashU will equip me with unparalleled opportunities to grow as a scholar. Just yesterday, I visited the philosophy department in Wilson Hall. When I met with the secretary to arrange an appointment with a professor, I inspected the walls, covered in posters advertising upcoming workshops, conferences, and even concerts. You know I come from a two-year school, right?”

“Yes; I recall you mentioning it earlier this morning.”

“At two-year schools, these opportunities do not exist. When I realized they should, I tried arranging an undergraduate philosophy conference through Socratic Society, our philosophy club at Meramec. But student interest proved too low. Undeterred, I sat down with my professor last summer, searching for opportunities elsewhere. We found several scattered across the country, but none locally. As a broke college student, how was I supposed to travel to the City University of New York?”

I continued. “Four months later, my professor forwarded me an email from SLU advertising their undergraduate philosophy conference. Finding just the right essay, I applied. As a two-year student with only a semester’s worth of philosophy courses competing against students more advanced in their studies, rejection felt imminent. But in a long history of defying the odds, I received my acceptance letter two weeks later. As one of only ten students accepted to present my work, the realization struck me that I could have a serious future in philosophy, even at WashU.”

Returning to Nicky’s initial question, I proceeded. “Speaking with other students and professors at WashU has only confirmed my belief that attending WashU would be a dream come true. The students embody the intelligence, drive, and ambition I find irresistible, all within a mutually-supportive academic environment. Never have I found a school with the same combination of opportunities, student talent, and academic supportiveness. As I joked with admissions yesterday, ‘You’re selective? So am I!’”

Chuckling, Nicky questioned me once more. “What objectives do you hope to achieve by attending WashU?”

I replied with another question. “What comes to mind when you hear the word vegetarian or vegan? If you are like the vast majority of Americans, words such as ‘radical,’ ‘extreme,’ and even ‘irrational’ spring to mind. But just how accurate are these descriptions? More intriguing yet, why do so many people subscribe to these beliefs? Through my education at WashU, I strive to research these questions as an extension to carnism, developing what I call the ‘fourth supporting pillar’ thereof. This pillar explores the relationship between people and other people, namely carnists and anti-carnists. The Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program provides the perfect balance of philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology for me to do just that. Equipped with a stellar education at WashU, I hope to fill this gap in the literature, making a meaningful contribution to cognitive psychology. Perhaps then we can answer the compelling, yet elusive question—why do we eat pigs and not dogs?”