<p>I'm in the middle of my junior year right now, with a gpa of 3.50. I've had depression for quite a while (since the second half of freshman year) and have struggled with getting good grades and doing things since this point. Despite this, I have still challenged myself and continued to take advanced courses; I took every advanced course offered my sophomore year, and this year I have taken all but one (leaving me with two AP's and one Honors). Similarly with my extracurriculars, I played a sport freshman year, attempted a different one sophomore year, and have done a certain amount of community service throughout, something I find very important. However, with my depression classed as severe, there was a huge drop for me where I did very little and regressed from doing basically anything; I'm amazed my gpa didn't drop more than it did. This year I am making a very serious effort to overcome and do more things despite still having the depression. </p>
<p>My first question is this: would it be worthwhile to put a reference letter of sorts in my applications where it says that I had debilitating depression, or would this hinder me? I've heard a lot of different opinions from people and was wondering what the thoughts were here. I intend to apply to mostly quote unqutote "upper tier" schools (certainly not ivy league, but places such as pepperdine for something akin to business; vassar is at the moment my dream school!) and get letters of rec from people who have overseen significant projects I have done, ect. This year I am trying to get more into doing things that I love, such as community service and tutoring. I suppose I am also asking; do I have a chance to recover and still get into the schools I want? </p>
<p>Sorry for going a little bit off topic! Any and all thoughts & advice will be extremely appreciated.</p>
<p>For top tier schools, I would say you should NOT disclose details. You can put something in additional information that you had some health issues that affected your grades, but I would not be more specific than that.</p>
<p>Bottom line: You do still have a chance to recover. </p>
<p>I share the same disorder as you (severe depression), and although I kept up with my grades, I know how difficult it can be. I definitely recommend 1) seeking professional assistance. Whether this means a professional therapist or your school’s guidance counselor, it’s always good to have an adult help you through this tough time in your life. After going back up and reading that your depression was already classed and diagnosed, I recommend 2) talking to your school’s guidance counselor. Not just as a therapist, but as someone who can email teachers. The guidance counselors want to help you, and if you’re in a particularly rough patch, they can email teachers and vie for you, helping you get extensions on deadlines and tolerance due to a mental illness. (Although my guidance counselor sent out emails, I still turned in all assignments on time and didn’t utilize the advantages offered to me.) </p>
<p>For college admissions, I’d recommend to only mention it if you’re talking about how you overcame depression. On my applications, I didn’t mention it at all. With depression, there is always a very real possibility of a relapse, and colleges take that into account when evaluating your application and building their community of students. However, it is very possible for you to bounce back. You could write a phenomenal essay on overcoming depression and get into a few Ivies or something like that. Still, if you decide not to write the essay on it, just limit yourself to saying you had health/personal problems. And, more specifically on the essay (sorry to digress so much here), you’d want to talk about how you were reborn and found all these new interests or something like that. A friend of mine had some terrible, terrible, terrible, things happen to her; the events inspired her to become an activist for human trafficking, or something related to that. </p>
<p>TL;DR: Talk to your school’s guidance counselor to see if they can help you and contact teachers for you; they’ve been through this with other students, and contacting them might give them more depth for your GC recommendation. You can bounce back and get into top-tiered schools, just try as hard as you can to avoid mentioning depression specifically. </p>
<p>You got this. Stay strong. If you ever wanna talk, PM me; there’re always people willing to listen and ready to help.</p>
<p>Unless your depression is the top thing you want colleges to know about you, don’t write your essay about it. Generally you want them to see you as something more than that, and your essay is really your chance to define yourself to them.</p>
<p>^Agreed with intparent, I tried to edit my post to reflect that. </p>
<p>I strongly recommend you don’t centralize any part of your application on your depression. If you choose to say something about it, you should just mention it as how it opened doors for certain interests. Like as a possible anecdotal introduction to some specific essay questions.</p>
<p>@intparent – would it be worthwhile to put in a medical letter, then, saying that the condition was real and did affect me but as since been “solved”? Or do you feel that this would be a bad decision?</p>
<p>@vctory –I was thinking about writing something (nothing too long) about how overcoming it gave me perspective, appreciation, and how it caused me to be fervently passionate about helping others and is currently fueling my goals (I intend to double major in business marketing/development as well as either linguistics or literature) to help people. I hope to also join the peace corp after I have completed college, ect. Does that sound to direct or do you feel it would be something good to write on?</p>
<p>Some colleges will give a bump for overcoming adversity, and they will consider most everything they know about you, positively and negatively (except items in the Common Data Set marked “Not considered”, e.g., your home state).</p>
<p>I get asked to write letters. Easiest when I can “show” rather than “tell”. Will the medical professional be able to show how the problem is “solved” in the context of the schools admissions criteria?</p>
<p>The above was written from the perspective of a medical provider. From the perspective of a family member, I urge you to remember it’s not just about getting admitted. It’s about thriving and the next step in a journey.</p>
<p>I think it might be a slight bump, but would serve best as an anecdotal introduction to an answer for an interests question, especially if you include a deep, extended metaphor in the essay. It’d have to be extremely well written, but you could pull it off if you gave the adcom’s a window to you; they want to see who you really are, and if you’re defined by those interests, and if you can relate the interests to your depression, an essay synthesizing all of that would be good.</p>