I’m currently terrified because I realized after I applied to USC and Tulane with my essay about my brothers addiction to drugs impacted my life and made me empathize and not judge others so easily but I researched talking about drugs on college apps and it said you do not want to do that if it’s talking about you doing drugs. Even though it wasn’t me it was my brother I still feel like talking about illegal things would make me look trashy and get rejected and I’m worried that I messed up my life. Any advice??
Calm down. It’s really hard to get into either of those schools. Not getting into them is not going to ruin your life. There are millions and millions of happy and successful people in the world who didn’t go to USC or Tulane.
You can’t change what’s in the past. Ideally, you applied to a balanced list of colleges and you have some safety and match schools to consider. If you really want to, you could email the regional AOs at those schools and ask them to swap out the essay you submitted for a different one, but I am not sure if recommend that, especially if you have applied early action to either.
Your brother’s drug addiction isn’t your drug addiction. No one is going to even consider that drugs are illegal and it isn’t going to translate to them thinking you’re trashy. It’s you applying to college and he is the one with the problem, not you. I suggest you relax and stop fretting about circumstances beyond your control.
As an aside, if you like, you can submit a different essay for any other college applications. Be sure that the focus of the essay is you and not your brother.
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