<p>There's room in additional information, so should I write things that may have affected by ability in high school, like a death in the family, first-gen college student, low income, had to tutor my immigrant cousin in English otherwise she would be screwed, etc.</p>
<p>if they are true, then it may not be a bad idea. i would avoid making a sob story though…</p>
<p>If there is a noticeable dip in grades, and you think grief caused it, then that’s worth mentioning (or have your GC do it). If you did well in high school, then you can also ask your GC to say how you overcame adversity and made tremendous personal and academic progress and so on. But I don’t think it makes sense to list every unfortunate event you encountered in high school to explain an overall low GPA. For example, if you’re consistently an A-/B+ student, it doesn’t necessarily follow that had x, y, and z not occurred, then you would have gotten As. You don’t want to sound like you’re making excuses on your application. </p>
<p>I think there’s already a place on the application where you can indicate that you’re a first generation college student. And you can probably list tutoring your cousin as an EC.</p>
<p>hey in general the more you add the better.</p>
<p>a cautionary note - how you describe your experience makes a huge difference. what i will say as some constructive criticism here is that your title and writing here are rushed (you wrote my as by) and downright awful. yes we are not adcoms, but we are people who are forming judgments about you based on this message. you are going to have to be a lot more aware of your words and language for the application. there is a fine line between bringing the reader in and pushing them away.</p>
<p>so let’s suppose you are very smart and this is just you not taking good care - then if you write something well thought out and intelligible, it will help. but if you write anywhere like you have here, the reader will be tuned out, and you don’t stand a chance. no amount of A’s or high SATs can make up for lazy writing.</p>
<p>in general it is my belief that how someone presents themselves to anonymous observers says a lot about them and their potential. if you cared more about going to columbia or about our opinion, you would have spent more time crafting this topic. as i said, i don’t really know how smart you are or details, but i can say that just based on this snapshot - you got some work to do. mentioning or not mentioning difficulties in your family life is not your biggest obstacle in the application; it is not what will get you admitted to columbia or any school. it is your ability to engage your reader throughout the application with well-thought out written parts, well-chosen recommenders and slurry of other information that gives them a sense that you are ready for the challenge.</p>
<p>^ Sorry about the sloppy topic and post, I was in a hurry. I wouldn’t write a college essay like this. I have consistent grades, except I received 2 B’s at the end of my junior year, somewhat due to grief of the family death. </p>
<p>I just want to know if I should list my disadvantages like I only have one parent, first-gen, low-income, had to take care of grandmother/cousin on the college app? I could probably have my counselor write about my struggle, but I don’t think she could devote it exclusively to my circumstances, so I may have to write them somewhere else, if at all.</p>
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<p>Why don’t you pick one excuse and stick to it, rather than throwing sh-- into the fan and hoping that some of it sticks?</p>