<p>I am applying for a Master’s in Public Policy. I want to include my diagnosis and experience with arthritis because my experience as a patient ultimately influenced my decision to pursue the degree. Is this ok?</p>
<p>If you can tie it directly into your motivation for graduate study (which it sounds like you can), then absolutely!</p>
<p>A brief discussion is fine. Just remember that your SOP also has to demonstrate how you’re qualified to pursue the degree, so you need to tie in classes, work experience, internships and such.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t. I’m in a field in which experiences with illness (either their own or someone else’s) is often a motivating factor for people to enter (public health psychology). It’s usually listed as a “kiss of death” for your personal statement because students rarely discuss it well. Either it ends up sounding like they don’t really understand what academic psychologists do (even if they are aiming for a clinical psychology degree), or they sound singularly focused and not flexible enough to allow their interests to expand. Disclosing your <em>own</em> diagnosis in a statement has the extra potential peril of making professors - consciously or not - wonder whether you can hack it in their program with this extra burden. (This is particularly a problem in psych programs, where people disclose psych diagnoses - most often depression or anxiety, but occasionally things like schizophrenia or OCD. Professors are understandably a bit wary about that and may hesitate to admit a student who discloses something so personal in their statement.)</p>
<p>I would say that if you feel it makes your statement stronger, go ahead, but you shouldn’t spend more than a paragraph telling the actual story and spend the rest of the statement linking your interest in public policy to the story. For example, if your experience with your arthritis exposed you to some unsavory policies in your state, tell the story briefly but spend the majority of the time focusing on the policies themselves and how they extend more widely to others. Use your example as a sort of case study - an example, if you will, of how bad things can work out for people who are affected by X policies. Then spend the rest of the time explaining how an MPP can help you.</p>
<p>I’m still trying to see the connection between arthritis and public policy. (I looked up two top PP programs, and didn’t find anything closely resembling disease public policy.) OTOH, I can see a fit between a chronic disease and public health policy, but PP?</p>
<p>My point is not to explain it to me, but if the connection is not readily apparent to PP faculty, it may take some ‘essplainin’ to do. And if so, probably not worth it.</p>