I think I remember in the past some members here suggesting not to use the essay prompt about overcoming challenges to discuss overcoming mental illness. My daughter had panic attacks last year and saw a counselor but also began taking medication that truly changed her life (I was very anti-meds but came around on this for panic attacks).
She really wants to use her story of overcoming panic attacks for the Common App but I am concerned this will hurt her chances.
Any thoughts on this? No response in Common App thread so I am hoping I hear back in this forum area.
I don’t think it will definitely hurt her chances, but it is a risk. Overcoming obstacles is a real tough prompt to tackle. You want to show your strength, but you don’t want to come off as seeking sympathy and you hope the person reading doesn’t have a certain stigma. Overcoming obstacles was my original essay idea, but I changed it and I’m now working on a different essay prompt. I really wanted to use that essay, but I realized after talking to my college admissions advisor that it wouldn’t be the best. It could’ve been rewritten, but I know that my writing style on the subject would be too expressive. She may have the same problem. My advice would be to have people read it and see what they think. How it sounds in your head isn’t always how it’s portrayed in writing. I would also avoid talking about how “medication changed her life.” It seems too risky for me. But at the end of the day, if she can’t write about anything else, a passionate personal essay is better than a generic bland one.
You can write about anything as long as it is well written, and it says something unique about the individual that will be remembered. Because anxiety and panic are both so common, the risk here is that there will be potentially a landslide of essays on the topic for this prompt. Go for something more unique, in my opinion.