<p>Hello. Alright, so I come from a family that would be considered upper middle class, I go to an expensive prep school, but when I was about 13 my Dad lost his job. From there my family kind of went down hill...my parents got divorced and my Dad was basically unable to get another job until recently (I am 17 now). Through that time we have basically maintained (through money from grandparents etc) an upper middle class perception, but at one point, for 3 months, it got so bad that my Dad could not pay child support and actually had to go to jail. We kept this quiet and basically nobody that we know knows about this (somehow pulled it off). What is key to point out is that my family comes from a lot of money (this is important for the topic)...we live in a very expensive area of a large city, we associate with excessivly rich people....but I always kind of had this little secret, that we actually were kind of putting on an act and living a lie. My question is, is writing about my expierences with my Dad being in jail (I maintained good grades, normal life, etc) and trying to hide it from everybody around me at my prep school who would NEVER imagine we had such problems a good topic? or is it a bad idea b/c they will think we can not pay for the college and be uneasy about admitting? another weird angle is that my Dad's father has a friend on the board of trustees at an ivy league school writing a recommendation for me (she will probably mention how she thinks we are a good family etc)....any advice please, thanks.</p>
<p>It sounds like a bad idea to me. Seems you'd be telling admissions a family secret for no reason other than it's an interesting story. I think you'd be better off writing about something that reveals more about your own character, not the dirt in your family's background.</p>
<p>hm, what if I use the story as a medium to reveal some of myself?</p>
<p>The question you need to address is, what message are you trying to convey to the adcoms who will read your essay?</p>
<p>You say that you want to reveal some of yourself... in what way? Some people write hardships to explain how they got through it and how the hardships changed them for the better and what experiences/lessons they learned from them. If you have a clear message you want to convey, then it would be advantageous to write about it. But don't write an essay that appeals to pathos to get sympathy points!</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>