Mental Disorders and Application

Applying to College
1

Hi, I’m new to CC, and went through pages of threads concerning mental disorders (and a few other topics), but many were rather old and not quite a similar condition as the one I’m currently facing. Before getting into the details, I’d like to preface that I’m discussing mental disorders, suicide, sexual assault and abuse.

Mental illness has had a prevalent role in my life; my father (who was emotionally/sexually abusive, and was later kicked out of our house) had psychotic depression and my mother (who I currently live with) has BPD. My half-brother, who currently lives with me, has extreme ODD (combined with uncontrolled and unprovoked anger). I have rather prominent OCD, psychotic depression, and a slew of other disorders that the people I see are currently in the process of diagnosing and treating.

Freshman year, I attempted suicide twice, and started being treated. The summer of sophomore year I was sexually assaulted by a former friend; towards the start on junior year I had a rather extreme psychotic episode and refused all future treatment.

My junior year I got two Cs and dropped from a A- to a B student. Currently, the fall of my senior year, I’m slowly getting back into treatment, and working through my problems.

After a rather intensive backstory, my main question is whether this information is suitable for my essay, for the ‘Additional Info’, or for none of it.

I have two essay drafts concerning the topic; one is how my father’s absence marked my coming of age (and deals with problems inherent in my culture and where I grew up and how I’ve both accepted and overcome the adversities inherent to where I’m from) and how my mental disorders have proven to be a huge struggle that I have overcome. Are both of these too trite/sensitive? I know I’m running a risk talking about mental disorders/abuse, but I suppose I’m wondering whether others have had any success writing about such topics in their essays.

Additionally, I discussed with my school counselor about putting justification for my sub-par grades junior year in the Additional Info section. Would it be safer to discuss the sexual assault, the mental struggles I was facing (without being specific about what triggered them), or to leave them all out together? He advised me to draft and re-draft, and if they came across as too insincere to scrap them, but I’d like to get some other opinions on the matter as well. I understand each person will feel differently about an application, but is it still too risky to discuss such sensitive adversities as poverty, a single-parent household, mental illness, abuse and sexual assault?

Any help is appreciated! Sorry for being so verbose, and thank you in advance!

2

If you search in the College Essay section of the forum you will find that similar questions do come up. It would probably be a good idea to search that section and read some of the replies to questions about depression and anxiety, suicide attempts, anorexia, hospitalization for mental illness etc.

First I have to mention that poverty, single parenthood are not sensitive topics in the least, do not confuse that.

Some people feel that the essay should present yourself in the best light possible as a candidate for admissions, someone who will add to the student body, so they want you to talk about yourself and your qualities. There is no reason to avoid talking about adversities of situation that you have to overcome. But you are in essence selling yourself. To that effect it isn’t always the best tactic to put a laundry list of problems but to consider a statement in ‘additional info’ or some people here think it is better for your GC to address this.

There can be TMI when discussing details to the point of not remembering that this is an application for admission, not a diary or a confession or a journal entry, and you do have to consider appropriateness in that context. and you never want to look like you are making excuses. I personally do not think that anything should be presented as a reason for your grades and that you should never mention your grades in an essay. It also looks like excuses when you are piling on and I have to say as horrendous as some of your situation sounds like, it does also sound like a lot of piling on. However I wouldn’t want to whitewash performing under trauma either.

There are not any statements that I have seen from Admissions Deans about the topic of mental illness in applications. Certainly admitting students with mental illnesses is risk for the college, risk to other students as well as the admitted student. They certainly can’t evaluate you and your recovery or fitness so it is my opinion that you not ask them to. I do like to refer to one essay that was successful likely because the student had this quite firmly in the past, was not making excuse for grades, was the class Val, and wrote a really good essay that talked about the problem but was ultimately uplifting. I can dig that up for you later.

How much of this does the GC know and is there documentation like CPS, police reports etc? Can the GC make a statement about serious family issues and an assault in his letter? Got to go now but PM me if any of this musing is helpful.

3

Don’t address any mental health issues in your essays. Those are warning signs for colleges.