<p>" I should provide the reader with more information on how I dealt with my personal issues"</p>
<p>I would only put in 1 hardship, your biggest hardship and then talk about how you managed to keep going to school and help other people through your ECs. </p>
<p>I know people say the PS is a chance for the admission people to get to know you but. with only 1000 words how much can they get to know? What they want to hear specifically is 1) How much you help the community you are part of or the people around you and 2) why you chose this major, why it’s important to you, how you will be better because of the major, etc. In short don’t write about your life story, cherry pick the content that will help you get in, I’d put in 1 hardship because that’ll diversify you as a person but spend the rest of the time talking about the stuff above. </p>
<p>P.S. be weary about getting specific advice about your essays because once you tell people that you were not accepted, once they start reading your essay, they will look for reasons and try to rationalize your rejected; What I am saying is you will get a very skewed replay that won’t focus on things you did correctly. Remember you don’t know exactly how close you were to getting in, you could have been rejected on a whim. </p>