Hey guys, I’m a 23 year old father who recently (last semester) returned to school. I’m planning on transferring for the fall of 2016 from the community college I currently attend, and I have already began working on my personal statements.
My problem is I can’t seem to write anything that I am actually proud of. I want to write about being a father, and how having a child to care for motivated me to overcome my fear of failure. Everytime I try to write an essay along these lines it just comes out as me making excuses for the semesters I failed four years ago.
I know that admissions offices don’t care about why I had crappy grades, and they don’t want to hear my excuses. Any advice would be apreciated!
Maybe you could write about how having your child changed your view on the world? Or how having them motivates you into wanting a better future for your child.
I think it’s important to explain why you had bad grades before so that you can note what will be different this time around. But yeah, it’s hard to put yourself out there as having failed when you are still dealing with a fear of failure.
One thing that may help is shortening your explanation. The longer it is, the more it will sound like you’re just making excuses vs. giving the facts. It also may help if you emphasize, “Yes, A, B, and C happened to me. But at the end of the day, I had plenty of resources that I could have used to change my situation before it was too late, but I didn’t.”
I think that you’re right, though, that admissions officers won’t care about why you had bad grades. They’ll care more about how you’ve grown after that, and your essay topic sounds like it could be very powerful. It might help to get all your thoughts on paper first, no matter how you think other people will perceive what you’ve written, and then get feedback from others.