To Include A Dark Past In My Application Or Not To

ambitioushsfreak
Thu, 23 Jul 2015 03:45:45 +0000

I’m planning on applying to the Harvard Pre-College Program next summer. I’m an incoming junior this year. There is a question on the application that says: Are there any special circumstances in the student’s background or home life that would help us better evaluate the applicant?, my mom has a gambling addiction and has had one since before I was born and when I was in middle school and when I was a freshman I went through this really bad depressed/suicidal/self-harming/drugs/partying phase. Obviously, I have overcome those obstacles completely and really had this like epiphany as an individual, but would consider that phase immensely important to my metamorphosis into who I am today. Now, I feel kind of uncomfortable just throwing that information out about myself since I don’t really tell many people that part of my life, so should I include that in my application into their summer program considering I’ve made an unbelievable amount of progress from that stage in my life and still am really successful despite my not so balanced home life or would that just scare them off and automatically give them like a bad impression of myself. Also, the teachers who would write recommendations for me would describe me in very high regard and respect, my transcript is pretty impressive, and my AP scores aren’t bad (one 5, one 3). This also applies to college applications in general I suppose since I’ll have this question again when I legitimately apply for colleges next year.