<p>My boyfriend is currently in community college and is planning on transferring to columbia university after he graduates with his associates degree(fall semester). He has a cumulative GPA of around 3.75, excellent recommendations and has volunteered in his college. He is VERY academically smart and very intelligent. He is in the process of applying to columbia and is writing his admissions essay, which is supposed to be autobiographical. how personal should he get?
i’m asking because my bf used to be a heroin addict from when he was around 19 up until he turned 22. he has been clean for over a year now. he has turned his life around completely, he is a changed man and he is focused fully on school, getting married and having a family. my question is, should he include all the nasty stuff with his drug related past in his essay? or will that kill his chances of getting into columbia? What about NYU?
thank you!</p>
<p>I am no expert in terms of college admissions, but rational thinking says no. Columbia is a business like any other private college, and it wants to select the best students to make itself look the best. Given that there is a real chance your boyfriend could relapse and start using heroin again (like many former drug addicts do), Columbia might be hesitant about that. If your boyfriend were in a job interview instead of applying to Columbia, would you recommend that he talk about his former heroin addiction? That’s the best way to send his application straight to the shredder. College applications are different in a way, but they are still fundamentally both businesses.</p>
<p>I agree with Muaythaiguy18. You have no idea who is going to read that application. Yes, it might hit certain people a certain way that means a great chance of acceptance, but my feeling that is not the case for most people and you want to go with the odds. If he were applying to 10 colleges, he could play the odds by having that essay in some and not the others and get some idea what its impact if any woud be.</p>
<p>Frankly, one year clean off a heroin addiction is very dicey. Look at the stats on that, and you will see that he is very high risk for relapse, and being in Morningside Hts…well, that 's really Harlem, and not far from Hunter Point and a lot of places where getting the drugs is too easy. No, I would not mention it until he is maybe 10 years clean.</p>