<p>Hello,
I was wondering if it was taboo to use a personal situation such as emotional struggles to show perseverance and hard work in an essay. I have struggled with emotional issues deeply in the past, but have done a great deal to overcome them and now have a 4.0. I did very average in high school. These things include anxiety disorder/bipolar issues.
Thanks for taking the time to look at this.</p>
<p>NEVER MENTION PSYCH ISSUES. if you really want to, refer to it as 'medical issues'</p>
<p>why is that? if they really would like to know about me that is a huge part?</p>
<p>Of course you can mention it, especially if it comprises a large part of your identity and has affected your academic performance. Emotional essays can work to your advantage if written well. Just make sure it doesn't come out sounding like a sob story.</p>
<p>I wouldn't mention personal issues unless they involve someone else's problem (i.e., family member,) a physical ailment you have, or something like dyslexia. If you have emotional issues because of some traumatic event that happened to someone close to you or something that you went through, then it would be ok to talk about. Otherwise, stay away from it.</p>
<p>The subject of whether to discuss emotional/mental health issues on one's application has been discussed a great deal on CC and it's worth it to check the archives on this topic.</p>
<p>You've overcome it and now it's a strength... ;)</p>
<p>I mentioned that I fell into a bad rut my junior year, which is evident by my transcript. I was a 3.5 student freshman year (4 honors, Northern VA school with hard grading scale), 3.5 sophmore year (3 honors, 1 AP), then junior year I went to a 3.2 (2 APs, 2 honors including precalc). I went through some really difficult personal things, and I mentioned that in my essay. I also mentioned that I learned a lesson, and my self confidence and esteem soared as I learned to "find myself", and senior year I pulled a 4.22 (5 APs, compsci and a comp graphics II class even though I never took comp graphics I haha). It was evident that without that blip in the radar, I would've had a much higher GPA in the end. So, no, I don;t think its bad to say you went trhough some personal issues but then learned from them. Would I mention specifically what was wrong? No, but make it known you knew you had personal issues and you overcame them.</p>
<p>shoebox10 - can you tell me what school you got into? cause i know UCs love to see improvements. did you apply to any UCs?</p>
<p>i disagree with shoebox...unless your emotional duress was created by a specific event (i.e., parent's divorce, death in the family) I wouldn't mention it. You have to be very careful here. Also, anything you tell your school counselor could end up in his or her recommendation, so be careful about who you ask advice about this.</p>
<p>if you have psychological issues that weren't triggered by some event, I would keep them to yourself. Overcoming obstacles is generally a positive, but you want to look like a person normally in good mental health who has overcome temporary obstacles. Dealing with a mental health condition that appears to be permanent may not sit well with college admissions.</p>
<p>good luck...</p>
<p>hmmm...i stand by my comments in general, but if you are vague and just say "personal issues" that might be ok.</p>
<p>Mai: nope, the farthest out I applied was CU-Boulder (I live in VA). I got into top engineering schools though, although I didn't mention this deal in those essays. I did, however, in my application to transfer to UVA. So i'll let you know whether I get rejected or not, but I doubt it'll be due to that one essay.</p>
<p>I agree with collealum. I wouldn't state exactly what was wrong (especially bi-polar issues). I simply stated that today I realize that I was having troubles junor year even though during the time I didn't think I was despressed, and afterwards I knew it was a low part in my life. I also mentioned that today, I know that I was having troubles during that time because I didn't have much self-confidence and thus I wouldn't ask for help. I also wasn't persuing what I wanted to learn during school and I wasn't very passionate about anything. I learned from this, and now ask for support when I need it and have found a new source of self-confidence and have been persuring my passions, and thus have been doing very well since then. </p>
<p>I suggest making your statements pretty washed-over, and dont worry about not spelling it right out. The adcoms want to see that you knew you were having troubles, but they're more focused on how you fixed them and learned from it. I took less than a sentence to explain my unhappiness, but used a whole paragraph to detail my dig-out and what i've learned from it.</p>
<p>It was also very well integrated into an essay that's main focus was not on my Junior year fall, but rather on the struggles of being a female in engineering. I then used my story about Junior year breifly to highlight that I've had troubles before, and have learned from them, and thus I can do the same in college. I also talked about what I had learned from my Junior year mistakes and how I was still using them today as a woman struggling to fit in to engineering.</p>
<p>So, my advice: mention your troubles, blandly and briefly. Then focus on how you grew from it as a person and how it will help you in college.</p>