In my biographical essay for questbridge I am considering talking about having depression early on in high school and how that impacted my grades, but still discuss how I overcame it. I just don’t know if they would look badly on that. Opinions?
The problem with writing essays about psychiatric problems is that colleges get worried and wonder if you’re a risk to have on campus. However, if you are able to pull it off, it could potentially be a great essay. If you do decide to write about it, make sure to especially focus on how you have overcame it and it’s not a problem for you anymore. I don’t know if it is or it isn’t a problem still- really hope it’s not cause depression sucks- but colleges will want to hear that it’s not a problem otherwise they’ll be worried.
If you can find a different topic, use it instead of this one.
As long as you want to do it, do it. Don’t let being worried about how a university will perceive you get in the way of truly expressing yourself and the salient parts of your identity. I also think admissions officers will appreciate being able to understand why maybe your grades weren’t so great. As much as I hate this, it was recommended to me and I’m going to recommend it to you to definitely highlight overcoming your struggles. It is so important to talk about mental illness, even if it’s just in a college essay. I wrote my common app on my struggles and I 100% support you doing the same!
The college essay is not therapy.
The college may worry that you could lapse and flunk out-- or worse: be suicidal or go mass-homicidal.
I vote NO to writing about depression.
This.
It is also not the only way to explain ‘why my grades were #@$$ in grades x,y’. Your GC can write about how great it is the that the health issues that you struggled with in grades a and b has been resolved, that it’s a credit to you that you were able to do as much as you did then, and your teachers are impressed with what you have been able to do now that you are back to your usual self.
Put it another way: suppose your health issue had been, say, IBS. After a painful period of trial and error, you finally found a way to keep the symptoms at bay. In some ways, it will always be a part of you, but now that you have a system, it’s just part of the background. Would that health issue be the thing that you think tells the most important, relevant things about you - from the point of view of somebody on an AdComm?
How are you planning on discussing it? A thoughtful and complex exploration of depression, your relationship with yourself, and your progression through the illness might illuminate a lot about how you think and write and end up being really good. I have read some really good articles and essays written by people who have experienced a range of mental health issues. One of my favorites is “Adventures in Depression” (and “Depression Part Two”) from Allie Brosch at Hyperbole and a Half. There was another really good one in the New York Times a few months back, but the author escapes me.
A flat or unimaginative essay could look pretty bad, though.
Potentially. In My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor spends a significant amount of time talking about how she learned how to manage her diabetes herself at age 7. The issue of interest, of course, was not the diabetes or the fact that she learned to manage it; she was using this as an illustration of how she became self-sufficient, determined, and ambitious at the tender age of 7. The thing that stands out was not “Sonia Sotomayor has diabetes” or even “Sonia Sotomayor overcame diabetes” but “Wow, Sonia Sotomayor was testing her glucose and injecting herself with insulin before she was reading chapter books” and “Sonia Sotomayor decided in grade school that she wasn’t going to die of an easily controllable disease, and she made it happen.” It set the tone.
Yeah, but you weren’t inviting those authors to move into your home with you, were you?
@hunkydory
Also, don’t use the essay to APOLOGIZE for bad grades, for anything.
When you’re trying to impress someone you’re meeting for the first time, do you air your negatives? Do you tell them you had really bad back acne, but it’s better now?