Psssst! Hey kids! Need to write a diversity essay for your college application but think the whole thing is bunkum? Peter Wood is with you: "It is also a device to ensure that candidates commit themselves, at least rhetorically, to the campus ideology of diversity." But he offers you advice in case you need it.

The key to a good college-application diversity essay is drama. One of the best approaches is to compose a story that captures the moment at which one of the deep truths of "diversity" crystallized for you. There are three such diversity deep truths (DDTs), and you can choose the one best suits your taste: (DDT 1) the reality of prejudice in American life, (DDT 2) the sheer thrill of encountering cultural difference, and (DDT 3) pride in one's own diversity.

For DDT 1 he suggests starting the essay with a sentence such as "Jimmy Thundecloud and I were shooting hoops one day after school when..."; for DDT 2 try "I didn't know what would happen the night before the big game when my friend Mike decided to tell the other guys on the football team that she was transgendered...", and for DDT 3 you could use "I thought I was just like everyone else until one day when my friend Shirley asked why I had so many freckles" -- even if you aren't a member of a preferred group, because hey, we're all diverse, just like everyone else.

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