<p>Would this have been appropriate to write in my application, as a difficulty I have had to overcome:</p>
<p>So, I’m in my last year of high school, and only since the start of the year have I decided to step it up and take school seriously. I’ve felt that, although I have had a mediocre academic history, I have potential, and can obtain excellent grades and scores if I exert just a bit more effort.</p>
<p>However, I feel that the people around me - that is, my family - have hindered me, in pursuing this goal.</p>
<p>My brother, who is four years older than me, seems to have a lot of time to play video games. What I mean, is that he would always try to convince me to play Starcraft, Street Fighter, or whatever computer/video game with him. He would go so far to entice me as to offer me money ($20-100) or another reward if I beat him. This took from me hours to days every week, and I soon learned that it would be difficult to win. Nevertheless, he would always mock me while I did any schoolwork or activity he didn’t find interesting, attempting to discourage me. He would say something like “glad I didn’t waste MY time doing history and biology (my weakest subjects); just gotta stress yourself out memorizing all that” or “nobody cares about chess; I bet more people play starcraft (a computer game I had played for a long time) than chess.” Chess was an activity in which I used to be very competitive and aimed to represent the nation through winning a regional tournament (which I was capable of), but gave up that goal, beginning to feel myself that the game was meaningless.</p>
<p>Also, during the last half-year, I have been constantly arguing with my parents about religion (as they believe and brought me up in an obscure one, and I have expressed my disdain and refutations on their beliefs), to the point that my parents would no longer support, or even care about my academics. My mother, all of a sudden, began telling me that she would not give me a ride to school, or pack my lunch (which I was not used to doing myself). Also, she would not give me an adequate studying environment; I had a small room at home with a desk-sized table and poor lighting. When I told her that I needed a better place to study, she would say that “it’s all in my head; truly good students can study anywhere” and even bring me to a psychologist several times to talk about this problem.</p>
<p>I was incredulous by my parents’ reactions to my need for a better study environment. My father was so exasperated that he threatened not to take me to the SAT test center for my only chance at taking the SAT II (as I had decided to take it at the last possible month). He would say, “I don’t care about your school; you don’t know anything about life, you can fail your courses and I don’t care.” He took away the SAT physics book I borrowed from the library before it was due or I was done with it.</p>
<p>Luckily, I was able to convince my parents this need and strengthen my relations with them. Just a week before the SAT, I managed to get a couple of books for SAT math II and physics (and get 800s on both of the subject tests).</p>
<p>In short, I’ve been harassed by constant discouragement that still haunts me to this day. My family, along with the psychologist, have told me that I am wasting my life working so hard in school and preparing for university, which is a place that just involves more studying and an even more narrowly-focused life. I have ignored them, keeping in mind my future and thirst for knowledge. But I know I could have done even more without their disruptions.</p>
<p>It’s too late for me to mention any of these in my already-submitted application, but I feel that it would be quite difficult to persevere with my surroundings, and wonder if I would have deserved some credit for this. However, I did not feel comfortable talking about my family this way, and that this appears to be a rather unusual difficulty.</p>
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