<p>i debated that forever… am still debating it.</p>
<p>i maintained a 4.0, kept up with ECs and volunteerism, and did pretty well on SATs all with anorexia though… even if i did relapse, i wouldnt really be a problem. i think i can handle pressure better than most people because i have been through hardship.</p>
<p>and if i was looking for empathy… i was diagnosed with an unrelated heart defect around the same time… i could have written about that. I was more trying to get across my insight into mental illness than trying to elicit empathy. I hope I did? I dont know?</p>
<p>but i definitely see your point. its a major risk… i dont know if i did the right thing and i wouldnt encourage any future CCers making this decision one way or the other based on what i’ve done.</p>
<p>Maybe i’m just trying to justify it to myself… hahah i dont know
yeah definitely trying to justify it to myself lol</p>
<p>I appreciate your honesty and your courage in posting both your essay and your dilemma.
I wrote a similarly risky essay–focusing on my struggle with abuse and subsequent struggle with drug addiction. I think, however, that because I focused on how I evolved positively as a person despite the struggle instead of the problem itself it will be a successful essay. I believe your essay will reveal itself similarly.
It’s important to relay to admissions officers the struggles you’ve faced outside of the classroom and how it’s affected both your academic performance and your character. I think both of us will be admitted to excellent colleges despite our ‘risky’ essays, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.</p>
<p>What makes you say this? There are certain struggles it may behoove you to discuss–poverty, prejudice, living in a war torn country are a few. But there are others that are better left undisclosed.</p>
<p>What it’s important to communicate is your accomplishments.</p>
<p>Yes, I read the essay. I think the issue is that adcom are given directives in terms of admitting a class. When I worked in admissions in the dark ages the issues were different than what they are today. </p>
<p>Colleges face a liability issue. MIT, for one, was sued a few years ago by the family of a young women with a history of depression who committed suicide there. There have been events like the one at Vtech which have called attention to mentally ill students and the issues of having them on campus. And one adcom weighed in here saying that their school felt it just didn’t have the mental health facilities to accommodate those with known issues. </p>
<p>There have also been reports of school mental health facilities being taxed such as the one currently on the parent’s board posted by Northstarmom.</p>
<p>College is very stressful for many. Kids with issues will often see them get worse.</p>
<p>For all of these reasons I would advise applicants to keep off the subject. While an essay might be good, interesting, evoke empathy or show why you are pursuing a career, if admission has been told to avoid anything that falls into a category, they follow the directive.</p>
<p>None of this is to say that you will not get into a good school. What your teachers and counselors have to say and many other things will factor in. But given the choice of addressing something that raises a red flag or not, I would go with not.</p>
<p>While I thought the essay was very well written, I tend to agree with hmom5. My understanding is that anorexia is very difficult to “cure,” and is usually a life-long struggle. The pressures of college (especially competitive ones) may intensify the feelings that lead to anorexic behavior. Adcoms may find such students risky in terms of making it to graduation. I have heard from my D ( who is in college and not from any official source, keep in mind), that students who must take time off for anorexia treatment can be barred from returning until they have reached an acceptable BMI level.</p>
<p>That said, congratulations on your recovery.</p>
<p>thank you. i guess i am a risk? but isnt everyone on some level? the cause was pretty unique and since i am not actively training anymore I don’t forsee a relaspse (though i understand no one does). I meant to hightlight my understanding of mental illness which A LOT of people just do not have. My brain chemistry was off and i dont think that it is more of a liability than any other disease. For lack of a better example, would a person with cancer be considered a risk? that disease has a high relapse rate as well. My disease was not triggered by stress from school but rather a too intense training schedule. My behaviors and disease were ultimately a result of rapid weight loss that triggered the way I thought. (See minnesota starvation experiment)
Also again, I handled it. I never missed a day of school for it and kept up grades and everything else with no one at my school really knowing wht was going on.
I KNOW i can handle the stresses of a top school as well as , if not better than any other student. I know stress, on every level, very well. But I realize admissions officers will not get all of that from an essay and paragraph in my additional information… which is frustrating as well as frightening since it seems the only people who believe it will be fine are people with similar insight to mine as it relates to mental illness.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of your honesty. I feel like I should prepare for the worst?</p>
<p>Since you ask for opinion after the fact, and since we cannot judge your entire application and since we are not admissions officers at your schools, advice at this point is moot, with the great exception that it can give opinion to other kids who read this.</p>
<p>I am with Hmom and I would not use this for an essay topic. I also think you showed lack of judgement in posting it here intstead of PM’ing it to readers.</p>
<p>You aren’t giving the colleges much here. I don’t think the essay is as strong or insightful as it could be. It doesn’t give much reflection on your strengths as a student, a thinker, a contributor. I can see that this may have been the hardest thing that you dealt with but I can also see that it defines you and is that how you want to be defined?</p>
<p>Also, your later posts show me that you are defensive and are not owning the issue, you are making excuses that you had a special kind of anorexia, that was not like other people’s and didn’t come from the place that other people’s come from and this is fradulent sounding to me. Another lack of judgement in posting that. I read that adcom’s do come here and read stuff. Please stop posting this kind of personal, identifiable content.</p>
<p>I think this topic might be more of a footnote to a grad student essay, but only if you were going into pych or social sciences.</p>
<p>Regardless, I hope you have success with your applications. Please post back to say “I told you so” or to cry a little. Remember, that schools like Princeton are terribly hard to gain admission to and you can’t chalk it up to one thing. As everyone says here, choose your reach match and safe schools and you are golden no matter how it goes.</p>
I initially was going to PM the essay but i’m really nervous about it and figured more people would read it if i put it here.
I was worried that my essay wasnt strong enough … thank you for the feedback.
I am sorry for my last post, rereading it i realize it was defensive, and the “special anorexia” as you call it was not me making excuses (?) but rather trying to give context to my unique situation and my likeliness to relapse. Personally, I believe each case is unique… i was not trying to insult anyone?
I did not know about adcoms (i dont know exactly what they are) and i will absolutely stop posting this kind of content… i am just a nervous applicant trying to justify what was done on my application by bouncing it off a few strangers on a forum.
Finally, thanks for the suggestion on a post back… look out for a thread either titled “i told you so” or “crying a little” lol</p>
<p>…Didnt meant to personally insult anyone with a single post on a college forum…
and trusttttt i’m not so delusional to be banking on princeton hahah</p>
<p>You sound like you have a great attitude and I don’t want to undermine your accomplishments. I didn’t notice that you haven’t been around here much yet. Sometimes is is best to listen to experienced people, however sometimes you have to go your own way. Yes it is a big risk, is that worth it for college application? not sure. But it IS always better to ask advice before the fact rather than after the fact. So frustrating when kids don’t–there’s nothing much to do after the fact, is there?</p>
<p>If the whole application process doesn’t yield a win for you that you are happy with, don’t overlook a gap year. While I would be a bit uncomfortable if my daughter did that, there have been reports here of it being very favorable to the student’s experience and favorable to the application success too. In your case, a productive year would be a real bonus to offset concern that it is too soon to be in a stressful situation like your first year away.</p>
<p>First year of college really is not always a walk in the park. I know my daughter had some bad as well as some good, and the workload adjustments, not having your long term friends and your family all can make for some pretty hard patches, no matter how resiliant you are. Somehow this always seems to completely change by sophmore year.</p>
<p>Your essay is meant to sell you to the adcoms…it is a marketing tool with you being the product. </p>
<p>If you are buying a car, you would tend not to buy the car that has been recalled or has a history of safety issues, when there are so many other “safer” cars to choose from. Yes, the car with problems in the past may end up being the best or fastest in the end, but it is still riskier. Seldom will advertisers bring up the performance/ safety problems that these cars have had as a way to promote them.</p>
<p>That may all sound very unsettling, but it is true. I am sure that there are many positive attributes that you have that you can focus on. You need to use the same voice and obvious talent you have exhitbited in your first essay to “spin” yourself so that you are not seen as a risk.</p>
<p>Schools like to say that they take risks, but I don’t see it quite like that. They take risks that have to do with a person’s circumstances (ie, poor parents, abusive household, weak opportunities) but not so much with a student that they see as being riskier based on their individual actions. That is why most people will tell you (and I mean that for everyone) to focus on strenghths, not reveal weaknesses.</p>
<p>It will make you stand out all right. Personally, I don’t think they will think of you as a liability or something because you don’t come across as unstable (like even ur condition was somewhat due to practical concerns - u wanted to run faster nothing wrong with that). But then again, I read this book by a former Harvard admissions officer who wrote about this girl with leukemia (top student) and how they were wondering if it was worth giving a seat to someone who may have to interrupt their education there eventually. While urs is hardly a similar case, this goes to show the terms that many admissions peeps think in.</p>
<p>P.S. They did end up admitting the girl though</p>
<p>My daughter disclosed her serious mental illness (depression and anxiety) in her essays and interviews. Besides “what she learned” through her challenge, she felt doing so right from the start was necessary to explain her transcript, and to learn what she needed to know about the school. She’d attended high school with a reduced schedule as a freshman, missed a semester as a sophomore, and attended a special school for students with emotional disabilities before returning to our very competitive high school. Except for one admissions officer at Smith, she found interviewers to be very understanding, and several shared their admiration. Like athletes who need to know about the sports opportunities, or art students who need to know about expectations for their portfolios, she needed (and we needed) to discover each college’s commitment to providing supportive communities. While most schools post ADA statements online, finding out about counseling, academic supports, first year orientations, accommodations like a reduced courseload, or how a medical leaves are managed were important topics. As parents, we wanted to know how we will find out how our child is doing (w/child agreeing to sharing info), where students go for treatment and how they get there if it’s off campus, and needed to learn about withdrawal, refunds and tuition insurance policies. The way most colleges are organized, they’d rather have you wait until after acceptance, and documentation for disabilities are submitted. But that is too much of a risk in my view. We’re finding that if you ask the right questions, you can discover the level of support you and your child might expect. More important, whether your child will be viewed as a burden/threat/freak or seen as a person with many strengths, with an illness that adds value to the diversity of the student body. If the school can’t disclose how they make academic and residential life workable for a student with mental health issues, and can’t include parents as a team member when necessary, it’s probably better to know ahead of time, and avoid the college. By the way, despite her 3.2, she’s received one admissions offer (and with a scholarship).</p>
<p>PS If your child has an eating disorder, you might notice how kids dress. A friend of mine found clothing worn by females at the college her D. attended exacerbated her body dysmorphia and eating disorder…</p>
<p>As someone else who has also struggled with anorexia, I really appreciate what you’ve decided to dedicate your life to, the world needs more people willing to speak about their experiences and shed light on mental illness and eating disorders. And I think your essay was great.</p>
<p>from someone who also recovered from an ED, fantastic essay. I also featured overcoming my ED in my college essays and it did not create any issues because I have been accepted to one of my top choice public schools. Your essay featured how the disease has given you a unique perspective on things really well. Best of luck with Princeton!</p>
<p>I had an eating disorder in my senior year. Judging by my transcript alone it isn’t noticeable. (My school was very supportive and extended a lot of deadlines for me…) However, I am taking a gap year because I’m afraid I may relapse under the pressure in university after coming out of it so recently. I didn’t mention it on my application anywhere. The reasons why are </p>
<p>1) Middlebury College’s admissions officers recently put out a “letter of advice” to the Association of International Guidance Counselors that they look for a “well-adjusted student”. I’m not an off-the-charts applicant. The way I see it, there is no reason why a college would want to take a chance with me, someone who obviously has had mental problems, when there is no compelling reason. I can’t trust that the admissions game is fair, and that I will be honored for my perseverance or honesty, or that the connection of empathy we as human beings enjoy is enough. They are not compelling enough reasons for admissions, IMHO; real-life, maybe, likely, probably, but not admissions.</p>
<p>2) my GC put in a little note in her letter that about non-specific “extenuating circumstances”, which I think is good enough to let colleges know I had to overcome additional difficulties while in school. The strategy was that there is enough context to perhaps lend additional significance to my achievements, but none to taint my application with the stigma of mental illness or the scent of suffering.</p>