Sophomore year marked a rough transition between two schools, both academically and mentally. I was under an immense amount of stress trying to balance ballet, academics, and trying to adjust to a new environment, and as a way of dealing, I developed anorexia. I lost about 20 pounds and it took a significant toll on my academics last year and this year. Since my sister struggled with an eating disorder herself, I hid it from everyone by closing them out and hiding the change in my appearance as best as I could. My family had to spend upwards of $60,000 for treatment for my sister and I didn’t want to burden them with my own problems. Recently I sought out counseling and am on track to recovering but I cannot change my grades and missed opportunities from that time. Would it be appropriate to mention this in my application essay, because of the magnitude at which it impacted my life? This experience has also made me consider a career in biopsychology. For some reason I feel like it’s a terrible excuse for failing in things I should have been doing better at, and that I shouldn’t mention it to the colleges I’m applying to, but at the same time, it was very significant and controlled my life for nearly two years. I’m just uncertain of how people viewing my application would perceive it. I know eating disorders have a lot of inaccurate stigmas attached to them. I’d like some input as to what I should do about this.
Sorry to hear about this situation in your family, how anguishing. And no, it isn’t a ‘terrible excuse.’ It is a direct cause, not an excuse. But I won’t lie, this is difficult. You will have to listen to various opinions and if you have a guidance counselor or other adults who know you and also know about college admissions you should discuss with them. This is also far from the first time this has been asked here so there are many threads with comments on this topic.
I personally feel this is an extremely detrimental subject for an essay and even to reveal this as additional information. First because, although it is the most important thing you have dealt with it really isn’t the most important thing for the schools to know about you as an applicant (and yes I understand it takes a lot to deal with, you should feel strong for doing so) so you are losing an opportunity. More importantly this is only something you have recently sought treatment for. So this is not something you can claim perspective on, you can only say how significant it was, not how far behind you it is. You can’t demonstrate that you can speak as a healthy recovered person with a couple of year of high performance academics to display. The colleges will not be able to assess the current state of your health, so basically you will be telling them that you are in a condition that makes you unstable. And at college, they need students who know how to get help when they need it so they don’t flunk out. Mental health help, academic help, organizational help, physical health help etc etc–getting help early and often. Your story shows that you didn’t do that in a critical situation.
I’m trying to be straight with you that it doesn’t matter what accuracies or inaccuracies the readers have about eating disorders for this purpose of college admissions, it just matters that they have no means to assess you medically, to assess that you are telling the full picture etc. Now this is just my opinion and I am not an admissions officer. There may be cases where you would be accepted . so that is your call. I would be supportive and even read your essay if you wanted to do it. I’m just trying to show an aspect you might not have considered because I believe it is a big risk. I would feel better about it if time had passed and if there was some kind of demonstration of recovery and functioning in stressful situation.
Now I think you can consider discussing an illness. However if you have two years of below par grades what do you think they can do? Give .5 higher on gpa or what? All you can say is here is how I performed under difficult circumstances, things weren’t easy but I was able to pull this out at least, I didn’t get these grades from lack of caring. I think you are best off applying to schools where your grades aren’t terribly out of line with accepted students. Motivated students can do well at many variety of colleges we have to choose from. There is not one path. The motivated student will ‘bloom where planted’ to use an apt cliche. You have to believe in yourself more than your school making thing magically happen.
Now I pause because I took a look at your chances thread. You are only trying to explain a few B’s. You have another explanation for a not quite smooth as you like performance, some which makes sense. Explaining Bs is a bit pathetic. I wouldn’t go there. I think you can decide to take a gap year if you think you will have a stronger application from showing all your Sr year grades and accomplishments, and whatever you do/plan for gap year. Or you can try this round and see how it goes.
Finally I have often linked this rule breaking essay on the topic at hand. Please note this is a guy. And he had the illness nearly 4 years behind him. And he was the class Val. And it is a terrific essay. He got into all 6 selective LAC that he applied to, but wow this was 14 years ago.
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2001/mar/010326.clayton_kennedy.html
Sometimes discussing things such as mental disorders, drug addictions, or eating disorders can be problematic due to the adcoms’ variable impressions. You don’t want colleges to immediately cross you off and label you as a liability. If you, in your essay, can beautifully articulate how you have improved from the struggle, how it has made you stronger, and how you plan to proceed positively with your life, then you will be fine.
What you don’t want colleges to think is that you will get to college, crumble under the pressure, and relapse. That’s why in your essay, it is important that you don’t highlight the past as much as you need to highlight the future. Clearly your anorexia has affected your career goals and has inspired you to study biopsychology. Being able to tie the two together and have them equal something positive is key.
Positive positive positive. Maybe if you asked on the parents’ forum, you might have a wider range (and a more experienced range) of answers from parents who have been down this road with their own children.
Thank you @BrownParent you make good points, most of which I had considered. I do like the idea of a gap year, I had never thought or considered it before. Although I would not assess myself as “unstable,” I could definitely understand how mentioning the disorder could be detrimental to my acceptance, especially since the rate of relapse among them is so high. It’s not something I really talk about, but being anonymous here I thought I might get some answers to questions I haven’t been able to ask. Maybe it would be better to focus in on the more positive things I have done in high school rather than the things that hurt me. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.
@TheDidactic thank you for your input! I would definitely try to avoid the “pity-party” approach to this, and rather concentrate on how I am now stronger and more prepared to handle pressure and make a difference. I appreciate your advice!