<p>Advise NOT bringing depression into your essays. If you have dealt with it, it is irrelevant to your application. If you haven’t, well…that is another story.</p>
<p>If you are, as you say, “absolutely smitten with figure skating,” by all means make that the subject of an essay. No topic – especially if essential to YOU – is off the table. And that could be a really intriguing and inventive essay, if approached from different angles.</p>
<p>Columbia is a reach for everyone, with a 6.7% admissions rate this year. If it IS your first choice, by all means risk applying ED.</p>