Can overcoming depression be stated as an accomplishment?

Applying to College
1

<p>Since 5th grade, I had undergone family problems. Not financial, but fight and extreme harshness. My father has extremely high expectation on me and whenever I failed to meet his expectation, he said the meanest thing that you could ever heard and he sometimes hit me with wooden hammer, fist, remote ect. I know this might be little dark and I apologize. Anyway as a result, he did many mean things to me and I got depression when I was in 8th grade and it developed to major depression when I was in 10th grade. I was extremely negative and unsociable. I was easily irritated and was suicidal. As a result, I had several dips in my grade. I still face family issue. My parents continously fight but they never divorce. They say that they are going to divorce after I graduate high school, which is worse. My depression continued until I was in junior year and it worsened. However I managed to overcome it with extreme positivity with the help of my friend. Now I don't get depressed and I am happy (it took me 4 month of pain in the butt effort to overcome it though). </p>

<p>I am definitely going to explain in the additional info section about my family issue and how it affected me and my grade. However, I want to show how hard it was for me to endure and overcome this depression. Would college acknowledege this? </p>

2

<p>How much does your guidance counselor or recommendation writers know about your family life? Rather than write an essay about it yourself, it’s better to let an adult in a supervisory capacity be your advocate. For example: <a href=“How to write good letters of recommendation | MIT Admissions”>http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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3

<p>Do not address this yourself. The GC is the right way. Too many downsides related to mental health issues if you address it.</p>

4

<p>Of course I am going to consult my guidance counselor for the recommendation and she knows about it. I just want to explain in the additional info section that my grade was often affected by my frequent family problem, but I was still able to achieve the folllowing… those kind of stuffs. </p>

5

<p>No matter how it’s explained, when a student writes about their family issues it tends to come across as excuse laden, potentially bordering on a sob story, which is why student’s should NOT write about family issues, even in the additional info section. Let your GC handle the matter. Erin’s Dad with 17,000+ posts, who is a super moderator of CC, is telling you the same thing. It’s been our collective experience that students should focus on other matters in their application – their love of learning, for example – and let a school official who knows the family situation deal with the issue from the perspective of a seasoned adult. That’s our recommendation. </p>