Hello everyone! I’ve begun thought process on my college essay, and the college i would like to get into most is University of Washington in Seattle. I’ve had others tell me my essay for this college will be very important and I want a personal and original essay that will make the AO’s jaw drop! My current top idea is to write my essay about overcoming severe depression and how it affected my academics, then moving on to how I got back up after staying down for so long, pushing myself into rigorous courses despite my depression of the past and how it had caused me to have a lower gpa (3.8) during my underclassman years. I looked at my high school transcript, and the shift from lower grades in my freshman and sophomore year to higher grades now is definitely visible, and I think when the AO sees the essay with the rise on my transcript, it will be a nice connection. Please provide tips and suggestions!
Well, different people have different opinions on this, but you must be very cautious when talking about mental health/depression in your application. You do not want the AO to worry about your mental stability. They may worry that, under college pressure, you could relapse. It might be possible if you are very convincing about overcoming your depression and show that you have clearly found effective treatment…But it is still a risky topic, in my opinion. You do not want the AO to see you as a potential liability to the university should you again struggle with depression.
You should be very proud of overcoming this issue, but I also think you should be warned that this sort of essay is notoriously hard to pull off in a really helpful way.
I think it helps to keep in mind that the ultimately goal here is to have the reader think, “Wow, it would be really great to have this kid in our college community.” There are many different sorts of kids who could generate such a reaction, but in some way you should be thinking about showing, not just telling, how you would be someone that, say, your fellow students would really value having around.
With that thought in mind, I think it becomes clear why this sort of essay is hard to really land. Like, in part you seem to be hoping this will help explain away lower grades early on, but that is an essentially defensive goal. And of course they will see the trend in your transcript, so what is this really adding?
And then as another poster also explained, any sort of references to mental health issues are potentially risky. Like, if they think there is a chance this could be repeated at their college, then that may make them less, not more, excited about the idea of admitting you. There are exceptions to any “rule” like this, but I think you should be very cautious about unintended effects like that.
So my suggestion is you maybe step back a bit and put yourself in their shoes. Imagine yourself thriving at their college. Imagine the other members of that college community being glad you are there. What are you doing? What are they responding to? And then what can you discuss from your recent past that would really help a reader imagine that themselves?
I will just come out and say it. No. Let your school counselor write this up in their part. How you overcame adversity. Use the essay to separate yourself. There will be tens of thousands of essays on how people overcame depression, Adhd, anxiety, name something else. Now imagine your the AO for this school. How many of these will sound the same?
AOs have read essays on just about every subject. Making it personal, interesting and unique is tough to do but worthwhile the exploration. Colleges want to know how you will be an active participant in their community. What do you bring to the table to improve the campus? Why should the college pick you over the thousands of other applicants?
Overcoming depression is fantastic and not easy. It’s just not a great essay that will separate you from the pack. The first like 1 minute is what is going to draw them in.
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