<p>Do you think I'm okay mentioning my parents' divorce in an essay if it's not corroborated in any of my letters of rec? I never told my counselor or teachers about it since it didn't impact my academics, which I'm kind of kicking myself for now.</p>
<p>Absolutely. If its an essay, then just make to sure mention something about it. In fact, you could even be like, because it had no affects on my academic standing, I thought that it was not nearly as influential as it actually was. </p>
<p>I don’t think it needs to be corroborated, but then again, I can’t see it being the main focus of any really good essay either. Essays should sell you in a positive light, and maybe I lack imagination, but all I can see a divorce essay being is a bunch of whiny excuse-making or a poor-poor me type essay. If it’s not, that’s great, but please don’t be either of those two types.</p>
<p>…
I disagree entirely I’ve read a lot of essays, with some excellent ones having divorce as their subject. Obviously, you should be “oh woe is me”, but there are so many things you can talk about, from pairing it with another interest, how it affected your relationship with other people, etc.</p>
<p>Actually scratch that-- even a well written “woe is me” essay is pretty good. </p>
<p>Your teacher LOR is a statement of how he/she knows you as a student — doesn’t need to mention your pers life. It’s fine</p>
<p>I have to agree with @MrMom62 that divorce isn’t really going to be a good essay topic (and have to believe that sweetcornundrum has probably not sat on a college admissions board reading through >1000 essays…)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t write about it in an essay unless it had a very significant impact on your life. Generally speaking, your passions and interests define you better than your family life. Instead, I wrote about it in the section of the common app that asked if I had anything to add to my application at the very end. I just put a fee sentences talking about how my home life was responsible for some low grades my freshman year and that I made an effort to change. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>I find some of these comments pretty crazy. Of course your family life defines you and likely contributes to passions and interests. The important thing about any essay is that it is compelling and well written. There doesn’t need to be corroboration by a teacher…personal life is personal. And btw, my mother is on the admissions committee for a well respected university and she has drummed it into all of us that the subject matter is rarely important, the writing is what stands out. She told us at the dinner table recently about an essay that revolved around chicken soup that was hilarious and poignant. </p>
<p>Chicken soup is not sad and pathetic and feeling sorry for itself. It is a far, far better topic.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about your topic, it is YOUR topic not the posters. If it affected you, write about it.</p>
<p>However, I see absolutely no reason you should worry about your LORs. To be honest, a GC at the very most, and rarely, would say “supportive family” which is immaterial when it comes to divorce.</p>
<p>I commend you for going through this without your school knowing.</p>
<p>Then again, unless it was actually this year, both your parents separate information would be known by the school and darn straight everybody would know that your parents don’t live together, at the very least.</p>