What should my personal statement be about?

College Essays
1

<p>Okay so I have options and I would love to include them all because these things made me who I am today but there’s a lot.

  1. Parents divorce
  2. finding out my father isnt my biological father
  3. I practically raised my younger brother and was left alone to do everything at a young age (single mom who liked to party)
  4. My brother getting diagnosed with leukemia and had a couple near death experiences. I also had to move to a different state with my dad during my brothers treatment. My mom and my brother moved to Tennessee and I moved to Ohio and went to a new school and my older sister lived in Illinois with her friend.
  5. My single mom having another child my freshman year of high school. The father is never around so Im practically my sister’s second parent.
    I’m not looking for pity in this essay but all of these things have taken a lot out of me to overcome. They have made me super mature compared to others in my grade. Do I only pick one of these to write about or can I combine them? Personal statements have to be short so I feel like this is all to much to shove in it… I need help deciding…ugh.</p>
2

<p>1, nah! Clinché
2, hmm, sounds okay, but it depends on you to make the essay glow or nothing more than yet another clinché
3, sounds legit
4, legit
5, isn’t this the same as 3?
Except for 1, these options of yours sound fine; however, it really depends on you to decide between promoting your essay out of the crowd or just inundated in the flood of boring clinchés.</p>

<p>Personally I dont think combining them all in one would be a good idea because doing so would risk your essay’s insightfulness, so I suggest you should drill upon 1 (or at most 2) of your ideas only.
Decide between 2,3 and 4. However, were I you, I would go with 3.</p>

<p>Have fun deciding!</p>

3

<p>Thank you! That was really helpful! </p>

4

<p>Honestly I’d say combine the ones about your family because they’re all related (no pun intended) and distinctive and would be a good response to Common App prompt #1.</p>