I was famous at 10 years old. Nearly everywhere I went people snapped pictures of me, exclaiming over my western features. My boisterous American family, three children under ten being herded along by our parents, could easily be followed by the trail of Cheerios left in our wake. We “gaijin,” meaning outsiders, were hardly unobtrusive in the more subdued Japanese culture. During my two years as an unintentional minor celebrity in Japan, I was surrounded by people different than me in...

I did not use a private admissions counselor because my high school...