Your college essays should help an admissions committee get to know you better. Colleges understand that they’re creating a freshman class full of real human beings, not just a collection of grades and test scores. So the best essays give these readers a window into some part of your life that’s important to you, something that doesn’t just repeat information they already learned in your application.
I’ve often heard from students who are considering revealing very difficult challenges they struggle (or have struggled) with, such as:
1. Depression
2. An eating disorder
3. Substance abuse
4. A suicide attempt
5. A personality disorder
There is no iron-clad rule of thumb as to whether or not these are good or bad choices for your college essay. But if you’re considering discussing such a topic, here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:
1. To admit you, admissions officers need to feel comfortable that you won’t be a risk to yourself or others.
At the most basic level, admissions officers want you and other students to be safe. If you raise questions about your mental or physical well-being, it’s natural for the person reading your essay to worry whether or not you’ll be OK when you leave home and have to make a big adjustment to college life.
2. Most college admissions officers are not trained medical or psychological experts.
You understand the complexities of your particular challenge far better than the average college admissions officer will. When you write that you’re bi-polar, or that you’re a recovering drug addict, or that you once struggled with an eating disorder, you’re opening up about a serious issue with limited space to discuss it, and you’re doing so to someone who may know very little about it. An essay that raises more questions than it does answers can create doubt and concern in your reader’s mind.
One occasion where I’m comfortable endorsing a student’s choice to share topics like this is when he or she has not only overcome the challenge, but is now actively working or volunteering to help others do the same. For example, I once worked with a student who’d recovered from an eating disorder and was running regular group meetings for other teens who were in the middle of their own struggles. Another student who’d recovered from substance abuse was now volunteering doing intake evaluations at a drug rehab center.
Again, these aren’t hard-and-fast rules. But the idea in those instances was that rather than potentially being viewed as a liability, these students were showing how their post-recovery work to help others with their own struggles could actually be an asset to their college communities.
No matter what stories you decide to share (or not share), remember the golden essay rule—these are your essays, not anybody else’s. You need to feel confident and proud of what you say and how you say it. If you feel that a difficult personal challenge is at the core of who you are, and you want to discuss it, you should do so. And if you’re unsure, run the topic by your high school counselor or a qualified private counselor before you submit it.