Brown University (RD) — Gender Studies and History

Main activities

• Founder of a youth electricity-workers aid initiative: organised legal-education events with CCTV about electricity workers for over 3,500 students, and arranged anonymous online support workshops and counselling.
• Head Senator of the student council: advocated and advanced an anti-bullying policy.
• Founder of the “Thems” law society: online debates on legal issues with legal experts and Canadian students; reviewed and edited legal articles; hosted law-book seminars and a podcast.
• Lead dancer and choreographer of the “Fy” dance troupe: created work from observation of social phenomena, performed “The First Lady of Malawi” and won two national awards at the China Arts Festival.
• Volunteer clerk at the Beijing Lawyers Association: recorded and edited consultation notes for legal-aid cases, drafted complaints, and assisted in pro bono cases.
• Researcher (supervised by a Harvard professor): “European colonialism and its consequences”, applying incentive theory to late-Qing legal reform; accepted by a peer-reviewed journal and conference.
• Researcher (supervised by a Vanderbilt professor): “Women in law and literature”, pioneering the use of feminist legal theory to analyse political ideology in literature.
• Researcher (non-profit law firm): investigated domestic-violence cases against women in Beijing, building a network data archive through statistical analysis and interviews.
• Founder, organiser and model of the school fashion styling team: two fashion shows a year advocating against body-image discrimination; invited to the VOGUE women’s conference.
• School newspaper writer and editor-in-chief: covered school events and wrote a novella on campus bullying in China; published 10 short stories on Teen Ink and co-published the book “Women in Law and Literature: Governance”.

Awards

• National History Day, senior historical paper, second place in the Pennsylvania affiliate (top 1% in the state)
• China Thinks Big, global first prize (highest award, 22 of 10,000+)
• Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, personal essay/memoir and critical essay, Silver Key
• Haidian District outstanding student (top 2%)
• School outstanding student (20 of 600)

Main essay

Taking Charlotte Brontë’s line from Jane Eyre, “I could not help it; the restlessness was in my nature”, as its thread, the essay presented that restlessness as the drive to challenge and surpass herself. Her love of history and law grew from it; witnessing the gender discrimination women lawyers faced during a law-firm internship hardened her resolve to speak for women and victims of violence; and that resolve became concrete in the anti-bullying society and events she organised at school.

Supplemental essay (excerpt)

Prompt: briefly describe an extracurricular activity or work experience. Response: a Chinese dance career that began at age four. Dance helped me understand cultural identity (Han dance, for instance, led me to Confucian and Wu-Yue culture). Dance is a unique language that expresses ideas through abstract aesthetic form. Performing and recording many works, I discovered the intellectual dialogue behind movement. The essence of dance is the idea it conveys, and I always look for its deeper social, political or cultural meaning: the spirit behind every gesture.

Future plans and additional information

• Future plans: lawyer or judge
• Additional information: submitted three paper abstracts