<p>I have battle over the years with depression and anxiety disorder and spent time in a psychiatric ward because of it. My prompt this year for the common app is "Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story." I feel like my battles with the past have completely shaped who I am as an individual. I wouldn't have the drive to succeed and live if I didn't at one point in my life feel like I didn't have the initiative to be alive. I want to shape my common app essay around that but I don't want to be rejected for this. Should I scrap the idea? How does admissions feel about this?</p>
<p>If you feel that you must write about it, then the essay should end on a happy note. Don’t make it so depressing, find the silver lining. It does define who you are so why not write about it? Just my thought.</p>
<p>That could work, but it needs to be abundantly clear that it has changed you for the better. Also, I hope this doesn’t come across as condescending, but make sure that you don’t come across as crazy, which is sometimes what a psychiatric ward connotes.</p>
<p>Scrap the idea. Admissions officers do not want to admit students with past mental health issues who might relapse once in college. There is no way to assure them this will not happen. Write about it when your journal or for other writings, but remember that your college essays are supposed to make admissions officers want to bring you to their campus to add something interesting or unique to the student body.</p>
<p>I know there is always some misconceptions surrounding “what makes a college essay great” or “what should I write” or what do they want to hear" but as one of the previous posts said, there is always a silver lining and I think that speaks volumes about you’re character if you don’t let the past define you but also letting it shape your success. i use my past as a motivation because at one point, I didn’t want to be here and I saw no hope for success. Now I use this as fuel to be the most successful person I can be. But i see your point; i don’t want to turn them off because I overstepped the line. But I also think the point of the essays is to make you human not just a set of statistics or numbers of sat scores and I think my essay makes me extremely human.</p>
<p>This prompt speaks to three ideas:</p>
<p>something happened as an episode in your life that caused a dip in your performance that you need to explain; or</p>
<p>you are defined by a religion, ethnicity, tradition that (maybe not formally) may show your diversity and membership in the URM cabal; OR</p>
<p>you are in an abnormal household that makes more than usual demands on your time, focus, and energy (care for siblings because parent is non-functional, contribute heavily to family business/income, care for family member with disability, recent loss of a loved one, parent away at war, etc.). </p>
<p>Your situation does not really speak to any of these cleanly. If you choose to write to this prompt, you can discuss your zest for life and wanting to make every minute count, then couch it in the context of a struggle with depression. But this needs to be a heroic victory story and show how you have overcome this obstacle and how your (recent) performance is stellar because/in spite of this experience. If you have not clearly overcome it or if your performance has not improved in the wake of it, it may raise more questions than it answers.</p>
<p>Otherwise, it may show your strength and resiliency and be a game-changer!</p>
<p>@itsjustschool I see where you are getting at near the end of your post but the beginning, I don’t see why this prompt you feel is only limited to 3 takes on it? I don’t think something that “caused a dip in your academic performance” is considered central to your identity. Academics and school are extremely important but you shouldn’t say that just because your grades dropped for the year, that something is extremely central to your identity. By proxy, okay if they drop as a result of whatever you’re going through that gives your explanation (which is actually pretty apparent in my transcript, I was suffering in about 9th grade and had low As on my transcript and only 2 honors classes but then by sophomore and junior year there was a huge jump in my performance level and i took 4-5 ap/honors classes in the year and my 92s turned into 109s and 107s) so I feel like that is also partially implied? What I really shaped my essay around are the lessons I took from it and how I learned that I have more strength than I thought I would and I live to see myself succeed when I never thought I would. </p>
<p>Perfect. Sounds like you are spot-on. What I meant by that first point is that if there is something the admissions officers will see as an anomaly AND it finishes strong (I used the term ‘dip’ to imply something that got worse and then better), you will want to explain the cause of that here. If a nagging question is not visible in your record, however, by writing to this prompt you may just be exposing yourself to the potential downsides mentioned in the posts above without any potential upside to writing it. If you can quantitatively show a trajectory, then this life-shaping event can be described against this prompt, and it ties in to show the added confidence, growth, and resilience you have experienced. Other than the three situations I highlighted, in my judgment you may be exposing yourself to more risk of downside than you have potential for upside.</p>
<p>Your story seems to have great upside compared to the downside. Beware, though, that nothing is implied or apparent to a reader trying to get through a stack of 200 applications they brought home from work when their tire blew on the way home, it’s midnight, and they haven’t finished with that obligation they made to Mary last week. Don’t make the reader work or connect any dots, or remember “oh, this is SEAS, he is the one with that dip in his grades freshman year.” The reader may not even have your full application- maybe it is dissembled and s/he only has the essay. And don’t tell them anything except a heroic story with upside.</p>
<p>The college essay is your best opportunity to sell yourself to admissions. I would not introduce something that can be seen as a negative in the hope of using it as a selling point. You should not be ashamed of your past issues and of course you should be proud of all you’ve accomplished, but I would not broach the topic in an essay and risk being labeled a risk. </p>
<p>The best essays will let admissions define you in a positive way in a few descriptive words. Think of how you’ve grown and changed as a result of your struggles. Let that define who you are and focus on that. </p>