Talking about personal struggle with health conditions/diseases in college essays

College Essays
1

Not exactly sure where to post this, but I feel here is sufficient.

I have looked at a lot of threads on CC and what brought me to making this thread was a recent thread about what to write your college essays on when you are a privileged individual (link: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/1717301-how-does-a-privileged-person-write-a-college-essay-what-did-you-write-about-p1.html)

I have seen many people talk about either their experiences with school clubs, their fundraising efforts, any relationship troubles at home with parents, trips to 3rd world countries (a few people), and other somewhat ordinary stuff which shows both their personality and perspective and all of that is good, but I haven’t seen many people talking/writing specifically about having a disease (a few common ones such as maybe stage 1 cancer/diabetes/forms of leukemia and there are many more conditions which are lesser known & more/less impacting on one’s life) and talking about their experiences sometimes from a young age growing up and dealing with these health problems. What comes to mind is if you have had a disease since a young age you have had to deal with much more mature experiences (multiple hospital visits, blood tests, MRIs and medication, negative impacts on all aspects of your life such as social or physical limitations) and that it provides a really good basis for your college essay when strictly looking through the window of getting in or not.

I was just curious as to anyone who talked about similar experiences or health struggles they have to overcome in their application essays for college or for other programs. This subject might be a bit more private/taboo than other examples listed above (key club/nhs/math competitions and honor society experiences and many other things) but I wanted your guys’s input.

2

Bump for interest. Specifically, I have an inexplicable gap semester, and I had to take it for health reasons, but I’m not sure what all I is a good idea to disclose. Do I tell them the absolute honest truth about what happened, or do I leave it incredibly vague so that there’s no prejudice from the committee about “serious medical situation requiring missed semester”?

3

I would go for an essay about your health struggles if you think that you can write a strong one. It definitely sounds like it has been a huge part of your life and would stand out a lot more than an essay about NHS or volunteering abroad. Just make sure you focus more on how you have grown/matured rather than the disease itself (you don’t want to make it seem like a pity party). I’m sure you have lots of interesting things to say.

On a related note, I remember reading an essay someone wrote about pizza and PKU that I loved. It connected her thoughts about her disorder to what she’s doing today (I think she mentioned doing research) while maintaining a light, humourous tone.

4

It may be a good indicator of your background if maintaining health / dealing with illness was a major part of your life, or if you’re using that experience to show discipline (through nutrition, physical therapy, ADHD), a catalyst to discovering a new passion (you couldn’t play basketball, so you joined theater), courage (being on the debate team despite a speech impediment), or a budding interest in medicine.

However, I think it’s difficult to write a sincere illness essay, since most of the time, you’re either too young to know what’s going on, or you don’t have the superhuman resilience you want to put in an essay. Most of the time, when you’re chronically ill, you either suffer through it in a way that’s not very flattering to write about, or just integrate whatever health regimen into your daily life. And then if it doesn’t have that much negative impact on your life, then does it still fall in the realm of “ordinary stuff.”

And then there’s the potential risk of revealing a health condition that could pop up again and cause you to have to leave school frequently / perform poorly. That being said, I have read many essays about sports injuries, speech impediments, ADHD, and obesity in regular essays, and some brain injury, car accident injury, sustaining some weird illness/issue due to young-child-stupidity (e.g. swallowed a marble), and congenital conditions for doctor essays. I also hear many more people write about family members or friends from all over the board (Alzheimer’s, suicide attempts, heart attack, death) so they can show how they handle a situation deftly or are a good caretaker / friend.

I’ve also heard of the rare few people who can bring up a mental illness and handle it skillfully enough to get accepted. That has not been my experience; then again, choosing to write about an eating disorder for Ivies, which were already super-reaches, was not the wisest decision I’ve made… So @cameraphone‌ it really depends, but I would be reluctant to mention something that could lead to stigma.

5

I agree with @OnMyWay2013; mentioning mental illness can definitely make people think you’re fragile or incompetent. Or they just plain don’t want to deal with it. For a more tame example, I entered an essay contest at my university with a (well-written, I thought) essay about depression. Didn’t place.

6

I can understand your desire to address it because, just like with a gap in employment, college admissions folks may wonder. Here’s my thought: if you can point it out, use large brush strokes to explain that you were ill, and then focus on [paragraph 1] [paragragh 2] and [paragraph 3] on how it changed you (for the better)/learned from it. My son wrote an essay about moving around several times, including once in high school, but the positives he had to say about it brought tears to my eyes. Good luck in whatever you decide!

7

I gotcha thanks guys for all the replies. Yeah I guess writing an essay regarding your health struggles is very dependent on what exactly you write about as it can work and not work in your favor, although it can work for you if you make it both mature and well-written i suppose.

you know i wonder if there are a few essays talking about what @OnMyWay2013‌ was mentioning earlier along with others (speech impediments and food eating disorders to depression or life-endangering genetic diseases stuff and more severe stuff alike)…from the strict standpoint of getting into the college and assuming they are all written of equal level…do you guys think a college ad com might sway more towards the applicant who has dealt with more severe issues?

8

Not necessarily. I think adcoms will read many “sob story” essays that follow the same narrative of painting a picture of tragedy, then dramatically explaining how you rose above it. Taking a unique angle will make the writer stand out more, and this can be done regardless of the severity of illness, or even with any topic at all. That being said, if somebody was able to go through leukemia treatments and, let’s say, be valedictorian despite missing half the year, start a support group at her hospital, etc., that’s worth mentioning because those are more impressive accomplishments given the circumstances. But then again, the more “severe” the issue, the harder such accomplishments are to attain.

9

Adcoms lean toward more severe issues ?? No. That would be more for, say, medical research.

Remember you’re writing this as part of a college app. Rather than how disabling or debilitating this is/was, you want Adcoms to see how you succeeded despite-- and will be a great member of their community. And also remember it’s not just telling them. You need to show it.

10

D wrote about overcoming health issues associated with being born terribly premature. I think it’s fine to talk about a medical condition unless it’s one that might cause a college to have concerns about admitting you

11

if your main concern is explaining the gap year, you can ask your guidance counselor to address that in his or her letter (but also with a positive spin, such as “Despite the fact that…”). And then you can address a topic that you might be more eager to write about in your essay. At least thats my thought, but I’m just a parent, not an admissions professional.

12

i gotcha guys thanks for the info and replies. yeah i feel what you’re saying onmyway it will really benefit you if you show through examples like you said of how you overcame it but just talking about it i guess there would be quite a few applicatants just talking about something they “overcame” but not really showing through real life examples the significance and whatnot of it you know what im saying