Disclosing Possible ADHD Diagnosis on UC Application

Applying to College
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Hello,

I am a senior applying to college this fall. I plan to go into clinical psychology and major in Cognitive Science in most schools I am applying to. I have exhibited ADHD traits throughout my life, though my parents seemed to ignore it. My grades are decent enough (3.7 unweighted GPA) but this condition has brought a lot of stress forward in the last few years socially and at home moreso than in class. I am passionate about psychology of my and a big extracurricular activity I am involved in is linked to neurodiversity advocacy for students with ADHD and Autism. I was able to put my foot down with my mother and we are only just beginning the diagnosis process for ADHD as of this summer. I was wondering if it would be wise to disclose my identity as a neurodiverse individual in my UC PIQs due to its connection with my advocacy work which I am very passionate about, despite likely not having an official diagnosis by the time my application is submitted. I plan to mention going through the process of being diagnosed but nowhere will I lie about already having one.

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What do you mean by “the process of getting diagnosed”? There is no test for ADHD. Psychiatrists and even your primary care doctor can use a questionnaire- often one for you and one for a parent. It is not an objective test.

You can have neuropsychological tests for other learning challenges and then other causes of focus issues can be identified or eliminated. But that testing is not necessary for an ADHD diagnosis.

Neurpsychological testing for focus are, acccording to our tester, unreliable due to the artificiality of the context of testing.

I think you can write your essays about your interest in advocacy work, and mention that you have issues with focus and organization or whatever you perceive as the issues, and that you are trying to identify the cause.

The fact that you said your possible ADHD does not affect school as much as home and social life is interesting. I hope you get to the bottom of whatever the challenge actually is. It may not be ADHD so I would not self-diagnose but instead describe the problem in your essay,

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If OP currently has unaddressed focus and organization issues, I would encourage them not to write about that, whether they have formal diagnosis or not. If any issues have been addressed it’s ok to mention them, but only if it’s a critical piece of OP’s story (say the impetus for advocacy work, which then would require one sentence that their own issues with focus and organization, which have been addressed, were the impetus for becoming an advocate).

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Below are your options for Personal Insight Questions (chose 4 of the 8). I would avoid writing about PIQ 4 or 5. Based on your statement that you have a “big extracurricular activity”, I’m guessing you will choose PIQ 1 or 7. I included the “things to consider” under those PIQ. PIQ #1, doesn’t ask why you chose to be a leader. It asks you to tell what you did. PIQ #7 says you can consider including what inspired you to act. Did your own personal traits inspire you to act or did something or someone else inspire you to act?

My point is, if you have a big extracurricular activity, will including your own struggles (or potential diagnosis) add to what you did or draw attention away from it?

1. Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes or contributed to group efforts over time.

Things to consider: A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities?

Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?

2. Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

3. What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

4. Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

5. Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

6. Think about an academic subject that inspires you. Describe how you have furthered this interest inside and/or outside of the classroom.

7. What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

Things to consider: Think of community as a term that can encompass a group, team or a place — like your high school, hometown or home. You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. Was there a problem that you wanted to fix in your community?

Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn from your effort? How did your actions benefit others, the wider community or both? Did you work alone or with others to initiate change in your community?

8. Beyond what has already been shared in your application, what do you believe makes you a strong candidate for admissions to the University of California?

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I think the most you can allude to is that you have long suspected you are neurodiverse, but be sure there is a reason you are mentioning it. I see no point in writing about the rest. It’s great that you are passionate about your activities but I am not sure how telling them you are in the process of learning if you have ADHD is highlighting why they should want you at their college. Isn’t there more to you than that? What other attributes do you possess that would make you a good addition to campus?

I totally agree with @Mwfan1921 above. The interesting thing is the advocacy work, not that you might have ADHD.

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This.

From these quotes it seems that you believe 1) that you will get a dx for ADHD; 2) your parents have let you down by not getting you tested; and 3) that if you had had a dx both your social and academic life would be better.

Collegekid1 got an ADHD dx in her first year of university. We were not remotely surprised, but -in our judgement- the accommodations and treatments available with that dx had more negatives than positives in primary and secondary school. Like you, her grades were good enough to get into a top college. At her university, however, there was no option to type exams without a dysgraphia dx, so to get typing accommodations she went for testing, and came back with both dysgraphia and ADHD dx. The accommodations available at college were better/more helpful than those at her primary and secondary schools, and the push for medicating is lower with older students. Getting the dx did not change her directly (like us, and like you, she had always suspected it), but the specific accommodations available at school helped her manage the (considerably more intense) academics in college. But that’s it. IMO there is a line between the helpful naming of a challenge and the evolution of the naming into a self-defining label. You seem very keen to label yourself (see below), but as @Lindagaf pointed out, you are more than that label, and the label is not the thing that is going to be what “would make you a good addition to campus”.

These two statements do not align.

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First - get a actual diagnosis from a psychologist.

Second - do not disclose this on your application, especially if it is still a challenge. As I’ve written before, colleges are risk-averse, and they prefer to not have to invest any extra effort of money on ensuring the success of their students.

My kid was only diagnosed as ADHD in college. She is entering her senior year, and doing better than she did in high school. I do not know if the college knowing of her condition would have affected her admissions, since she did not get in via a regular route, but there is a good chance that it would have done so. Yet, even before she was able to get accomodations, she was able to do better in college than she did in high school.

My point is that when colleges are aware that a student has ADHD, or is neurodiverse in another way, the colleges will assume that the student will underperform because of this. Moreover, ADA requires them to provide accommodations to students, and colleges are often reluctant to commit extra resources that they do not have to.

Bottom line is that you will receive that accommodations you need, so long as you have an official diagnosis, whether you have disclosed your condition to the college before you were accepted or not. However, it may affect your admissions. So there is no real upside in providing this info, and there are potential downsides.

You seem to have that most common of college-admissions misconceptions, that “how I overcame adversity and hardships” is a “winning” essay theme. It is not, and highlighting your difficulties as a neurodiverse individual will not make you a more attractive applicant. Highlight your strengths and interests, not your hardships and reasons that you may not succeed. Tell an interesting story about yourself to catch their interest, not evoke their sympathy or pity.

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Just to clarify, I wasn’t going to mention ADHD in a way to pity-monger. This has been a motivator for my interest in neurodiverse advocacy and I feel like it would add context to my story and impact.

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Not only “pity-mongering” (great term!) is a bad idea, but also as something which with you are currently struggling, or potentially may be struggling in the future. Accomodations cost the university money, and, once you are accepted, they cannot deny you the accommodations. Technically, they also cannot deny you admission based on your ADHD, but that is practically unprovable.

So even an essay in which you describe how you persevered in your struggle with ADHD is not a good idea. The only context in which it is advisable to mention ADHD is one which has been used by the child of a CC member, in which the kid talked about ADHD being their “superpower”. Basically, how the kid saw their ADHD as an asset.

Since you have mentioned that your ADHD is an impediment, I would not mention it. Interest in Neurodiversity can come from multiple directions, and you do not need to justify your interest by mentioning that it is related to your own personal condition.

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Could you please explain these two statements a bit more?

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@mwfan1921 Exactly. Mention challenges you have only to provide context for your EC.

But you cannot represent yourself as neurodiverse without a diagnosis so if you don’t pursue that, your only option is to say something like you became interested in this area due to some personal experiences. That is all- no need to elaborate. Could be you, or a friend, or a sibling …

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