<p>I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder a year ago but I never underwent treatment with a therapist for it. Instead I looked to see if there was any way I could try to cure myself of this. I found that it is extremely difficult if not impossible for one to cure themselves of this disorder without the help of a therapist but it was possible to do so. Basically you just had to use the therapist's strategy except you do it by yourself. The treatment for maybe being afraid to look people in the eyes would be to talk about it and then slowly try to bring the person to start looking people in the eyes until they feel comfortable with it. I just used such techniques except I forced myself to do it, with some help from close friends and family until I rid myself of the illness. I am a senior in high school now and I really would like to apply to top schools like Northwestern and Duke but I'm not sure I can get in. I feel that my grades are ok, I have a 3.85 gpa unweighted and taking the accelerated and advanced courses throughout high school. I have passed 3 AP tests with 4s and 5s and have a 34 on my ACT. I also have SAT subject history and math II with a 790 and 770 respectively. I also believe that I will receive a good counselor recommendation and a fairly good teacher recommendation. The only problem is that I have a few extracurricular activities but no leadership positions in any of them. I'm wondering if I mention that I had SAD and was able to cure myself if that would be able to cover for my lack of leadership positions. And is there anything else I could do to bolster my chances at admission to these top schools. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>Stop being so SAD. Don’t worry, be HAPPY.</p>
<p>…seriously?</p>
<p>Chill out. You have the grades and the test scores, ECs aren’t that important anyway. Just write a good essay and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>I would not mention a mental disease in any way if you want to get into the school.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if I can write this because I have been I have been cured of this so I’m trying to show resiliency and how if I want to get anything something done I can. I’m wondering if your saying this because you know that colleges will assume that I still have the disorder or is it they will think something else.</p>
<p>It may be because of human nature. People with mental disorders are stigmatized by society, and this is mostly because of ignorance. I wouldn’t submit an application with such sensitive and personal information with the chance that it could be judged in a wrong way. Admissions officers are people too, and they could view this in an ignorant manner. They are placed in a highly stressed and busy atmosphere where thousands of applications must be processed, and sometimes they simply are not in a disposition to consider you in the best light possible. </p>
<p>Also, no offense, but as you may well know your self-treatment without a therapist may be viewed in a negative way. It is certain to the adcoms that you were diagnosed for SAD, but never empirically proven that you have cured. Any seed of doubt will not work for you, especially when adcoms are led to believe that an environment such as college requires much social interaction. </p>
<p>My advice is to sit on this one, and keep it private- to yourself, your close family, and your best friends. I wish you the best.</p>
<p>I agree with Erin’s Dad. Colleges are very nervous about accepting people with mental disorders. You can see it from their point of view, some of the students with mental illnesses that they have accepted in the past have not succeeded at their school. Once you’re on their campus they are responsible for you. I hear what you’re saying about the progress you have made on your own and good for you. It’s just too risky to mention it.</p>
<p>So lets say I were to actually get a therapist or psychiatrist to prove that i have managed to cured myself of SAD would it actually be of any use? I really can’t see any way around my lack of leadership because I have no leadership positions period and if I can’t at least find a way to explain it, I’m not sure if it would be even possible for me to get into my bottom line schools of University of Michigan and Wake Forest University let alone Northwestern and Duke. Do any of you have any suggestions to help me with this? Thanks.</p>
<p>Also, would it be better to say that I was just extremely shy rather than having SAD? Would this put my problems in a different light?</p>
<p>Agree with Erin’s dad. This would not show resiliency. It would show a kid with a diagnosis that warranted professional help and chose not to get it. This would scare colleges.</p>
<p>I think you have to find a way to show what you’ve overcome without mentioning a “mental disorder” or “self therapy” or any other words that would be highly likely to evoke a negative reaction by the average joe admissions officer. My son has aspergers and similar performance statistics at school, but lots of leadership because we planned ahead to get some. You can still get leadership…go volunteer for a habitat for humanity weekend and ask to have some responsibility. Go to the foodbank and ask to be a leader for a day. If you simply say that you have always had an overwhelming social shyness and talk about your pathway to perserverence in overcoming what would be a lifelong handicapp for others, but not yourself, you can both reveal your success and focus on how and why you will succeed in college. It’s all about framing, and my best suggestion is to frame it correctly and positively as a success story or don’t put it in the picture at all. It took us about a year of trying to figure out how to frame my son’s disability and his success as a “success story” …you’ll likely need some solid indicia of success to demonstrate how far you’ve come in order to make the story “successful.”</p>
<p>I agree with everyone who said that mentioning a mental disorder on your college applications is not a good idea. Post #12 has excellent ideas about how to show your progress without using labels about diagnosed mental illness and treatments.</p>
<p>And good for you! I wish you much success! I hope you feel GREAT about what you’ve accomplished.</p>
<p>Ok thanks dzmc for the suggestion. I suppose that if I were to get a leadership position then I could frame this as a success story. Then I maybe should not mention SAD because I don’t see anywhere that I actually have to tell colleges about it at all then put it more as shyness and overcoming my shyness. Then it could seem to admissions officers as a kid working hard to overcome his weaknesses and actually achieving it. I mean I definitely can understand how “disorder” or “illness” may scare away the average soccer mom admissions volunteer. So putting it in a different light such as shyness, then it would not seem like I rejected professional help when I needed it. I did get help from my mom and she did work previously as a therapist so that’s why I didn’t actually go work with the therapists. My mom knew something about SAD so she knew how to treat it. Just wondering, if I were to write the essay the same way but taking the words Social Anxiety Disorder or SAD and replacing them with shyness but essentially keeping everything else the same, and that it culminates in me being able to lead a group or something, would that put this in a much more positive light? Thanks for the suggestions and comments everyone. You helped me avoid a potential disaster.</p>
<p>As a senior, I think it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to suddenly show leadership in activities in time to affect college admissions. Anyway, most colleges in the country won’t care about whether you are in ECs or show leadership.</p>
<p>The few colleges that care about leadership want evidence that you’ve accomplished something as a leader: implemented some new programs, directed some projects, raised some money, etc. Just having a title isn’t going to impress them. </p>
<p>Writing an essay about how you’ve overcome “shyness” might be of interest, but an even better essay would highlight some strength of yours that would be an asset to the college.</p>
<p>I agree with others that it would be a bad idea to write about how you cured yourself from a mental disorder. Better not to mention having a mental disorder at all because given the choice between accepting a student whose application contains no indication of mental health problems and one whose application contains such a history, most colleges would prefer to accept the latter student. The admissions officers know that college – particularly making the freshman year transition to a new environment – can be very stressful, and the admissions officers fear that people with preexisting mental health conditions may be particularly vulnerable to experiencing mental health problems in college.</p>
<p>I did think about writing about some of my strengths but the problem is that I don’t really have any place that stands out. Besides my goal is Duke University or Northwestern University, I am almost certain that my essay would stand out very little if I were to talk about my strengths. It seems better to talk about overcoming my shyness because far less people talk about that and I think it makes me sound a little more human to the admissions officer. I need my essay to make up for my lack of leadership but many of the applicants to those schools have 2 or 3 leadership positions and have better grades than I do. My essay needs to address the leadership problem and make me stand out. At least that’s what I believe.</p>
<p>Then call it, “shyness,” not “social anxiety disorder.”</p>