<p>A questbridge finalist and lowest income student(less than 60k). He had to spent the majority of the first semester of 10th grade helping his father's small business(finances/taxes/invoices) about 20-25 hours a week(counselor will talk about how he had to support his family at the age of 15) He had a slight drop of grades that semester(only B's though d, 4.0 every other semester) and nonetheless because valedictorian of a class of 850 students. Is this case severe enough to be considered overcoming significant adversity? I'm not completely sure how colleges define that.</p>
<p>typos</p>
<p>(only B’s though d, 4.0 every other semester</p>
<p>is supposed to be</p>
<p>(only B’s though, 4.0 every other semester</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>*he helped his father’s business by doing the finances, invoices, and taxes. The business, itself, is a retail store.</p>
<p>Of course. Congratulations to your son for overcoming such adversity. I’m a QB student too, so make sure he mentions it on his application (when he becomes a finalist.) That’s a good essay topic if you can emphasize the personal growth and the good that came out of it.</p>
<p>Good luck :)</p>
<p>thanks, I don’t think I’ll mention it though cause it was kind of a really depressing time for me haha, school beginning at 7, then work till 7, kind of destroys you xD. It kind of marked the end of my childhood and the beginning of a really stressful, horrible semester. I have a lot of other things to talk about though, so its all good lol</p>
<p>Wait. If you don’t have anything else to put into the “anything else you think we should know about you?” thing in the Harvard supplement, you should definitely put that. That semester is a significant drop in grades, and was enough of a hardship to be worth mentioning. (Although it’s great that you’re valedictorian anyway.) It doesn’t have to be long, but I believe that hardships like that should be acknowledged, at least briefly, in your application. Harvard is hard, and people who can get through a really bad semester or year or longer challenges are much more likely to get through a bad semester here, should they have one. For instance, for me, I included a 150-200 word essay on “I had major health problems in second grade, when I was seven-eight years old. It took repeated surgeries before they finally got it right. I spent the whole year being home-schooled, most of that bedridden or in a wheelchair. I do have another health problem that’s threatening to come crashing down on me [footnote from me-2011, yes, it did, this summer], but if that happens, or if life throws more problems my way, I know that I have already done this more than once, and I know that it sucked, and that it was hard, but I know that if I have to, I can do it again. [footnote from me-2011: accurate; I did get through it, and am now better, and it was slightly easier this time]” It was extremely brief. It was not eloquent. There were very few details. But it got the point across, and I think it did help differentiate me from the thousands of other applications.
On the other hand, if your counselor is going to mention it in his/her letter of recommendation, you’re probably mostly covered. I’d still recommend giving your own perspective on it, but if you don’t want to, I wouldn’t stress it.</p>