<p>Yeah that’s one thing I forgot to mention, as you figured out, you’ll definitely want to try and apply to places that evaluate applications holistically and can better accomadate a situation like yours. Whereas I know some of the larger schools just use a formula to determine whether you’re accepted or not.</p>
<p>Also I wouldn’t call it exploiting your situation, because, as I see it, your situation (of unsympathetic parents forcing you to go to that college) is what caused your poor record in college, therefore it makes sense to talk about it. Whereas if you had done great in college, but still brought up your situation, than I could see it more as exploitation. </p>
<p>Also, here’s a section from this article ([MIT</a> Admissions | Info For Schools & Counselors: Writing Evaluations](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml]MIT”>http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/schools/writing_evaluations/index.shtml)) that somewhat relates to you:</p>
<p>[hypothetical guidance counselor reccomendation]
*Jane is an outstanding young woman whose academic record may not fully reflect her ability. Her parents were divorced during her junior year, and, for several years before that, her home situation had been in turmoil with a great deal of fighting between her parents. Her father has an alcohol problem and Jane certainly endured a great deal of emotional distress. The fact that she has been able to do as well as she has done given the circumstances says a lot for her. Now that the home situation has stabilized, her performance has improved. I believe her senior year grades are a much better reflection of her ability.</p>
<p>[analysis by MIT admissions officials]
Critique: You may wonder whether or not the above information is appropriate in a letter of evaluation. It is! We appreciate anything that gives us insight and perspective into a student’s performance and environment. Comments about problems that a student has experienced will help us understand the context in which they have accomplished whatever they have achieved. The extent to which they have dealt with these problems is useful to know as well.*</p>
<p>as you can see the college admission officials at this highly selective school (MIT) highly valued knowing about a students personal struggles, and especially, how that affects their performance acedamically. Not to mention, how overcoming adversity like that could shapes who you are and what you value. It sounds like you have a lot of ambition and determintation, more than most kids who are going to be applying to undegraduate colleges. So bringing up those qualities in one of your essays, and how they’ve developed as a result of what you’ve been through, could certainly help. </p>
<p>I’ve been reading a book on college application essays, and the highest ranked essay in the book (ranked by college admissions officials) was an essay to harvard by a student who was growing up both gay and asian, and he spent his essay just talking about his experience of being gay, and how that’s shaped him as a person, and the adverstity he’s had to overcome. Granted the guy was also also very intelligent and mature, and the essay was extremely well written, but it still goes to show that talking about personal subjects like that, and how they’ve affected you, can really work well. Again, I’ve been only looking into highly selective colleges (ivies, top liberal arts colleges) so that’s where all my knowledge, but I think all this would still apply to some degree to anyplace that uses a holistic grading scale. </p>
<p>Lastly, for more specific information I’d recommend just emailing a couple schools like Yale ([Contact</a> Us | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/contact-us]Contact”>Connect With Yale Admissions | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions)) and the like, even if you’re not planning on applying there, fully describing your situation, and seeing what they have to say. That way you can get advice from admissions officials, and the worst thing that will happen is they’ll just ignore your email. On the other hand, if you email enough schools like that you’re likely to get some concrete, more knowledgeable advice.</p>