<p>what do you mean years of experience…?</p>
<p>years of experience in what?</p>
<p>No. No, no, no. Take it from someone who has won a lot of national awards and has talked at length with admissions officers and scholarship selection committee members about this.</p>
<p>I had a sob story like you would not believe, but I never got into any degree of detail about it. It takes a lot more character to sell yourself based on your accomplishments than to try to win people over by making them feel bad for you, and admissions officers know that. It is much, much better to make a brief, almost passing remark about your challenges, and then proceed to explain how you’ve made your life so much better since then.</p>
<p>Kids who were abused, were homeless, had medical problems, watched their parents get divorced, and so forth are a dime a dozen, especially when applying to those types of institutions - it’s the ones that can get by without having to resort to whoring (sorry) that stuff out that really impress people.</p>
<p>Basically, no one wants to hear your whining. Talk about what’s been good, not bad. Talk about what you’ve done for yourself, not what others have done to you (or bad things you’ve done). Get by on your own in life, not on charity.</p>
<p>yeah, good answer</p>
<p>Anything that gives you an edge at these schools is fair game and a human interest story gives a face to the applicant. I’d mention it because if it is presented carefully I think it will help.</p>
<p>Sob stories are really tricky because most of the time admissions will assume that your using it as a kind of sympathy thing to get in. There’s nothing wrong with writing about a huge obstacle, but make sure most of your essay is focused on your achievements that came out of it, rather then the ‘sob’ part of the story itself.</p>