My feedAdmissions Advice
0
@briannaf
12 answers, 27 votes
 • 4 years ago •
Admissions Advice
[edited]

Advice on Personal Statement Topic?
Answered

Hi, I am trying to decide what essay topic is best for me. So far, I have drafted an essay about my relationship with mental illness and how music helped me. I also have drafts for an essay about my natural curiosity/love for learning, and another essay about my very mixed ethnicity.

I am applying to Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Tufts, and some more Ivy's, and I want to be a vet, so I am planning on majoring in animal science, microbiology, or biomedical sciences.

I know that sometimes it is taboo to speak about mental illness on college applications, but I feel like it was such a large part of my life and made me a better person. I also incorporated about how music allows me to express myself and understand others. A lot of my essay is about how I was determined to get better, and succeeded.

Is this a good idea (especially for Ivy schools) or am I better off with one of my other drafts?

Also, should I specify what mental illness I had or is that tmi?

vet
MedicalSchool
topic
science
medicine
collegeessay
collegeapps
animal
commonapp
essays
applications
0
1
🎉 First post
Let’s welcome @briannaf to the community! Remember to be kind, helpful, and supportive in your responses.

Earn karma by helping others:

1 karma for each ⬆️ upvote on your answer, and 20 karma if your answer is marked accepted.

1 answer

1
Accepted Answer
@p1930
4 answers, 3 votes
 • 4 years ago

I believe the topic about your mental illness and how music helped you is allowed as your essay. Remember, your topic is quite significant to your admissions chances but how you execute your story through your writing is a thousand times more important than the actual topic. If it is a widely known mental illness like depression or anxiety, I would personally mention it so it will allow the reader to understand your essay to its full extent, but do so only if YOU are comfortable. Even if you do not specify the illness you will still have a valid story to tell.

1
What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools

Your chance of acceptance
Duke University
UCLA
+ add school
Your chancing factors
Unweighted GPA: 3.7
1.0
4.0
SAT: 720 math
200
800
| 800 verbal
200
800

Extracurriculars

Low accuracy (4 of 18 factors)
Add more factors ›

Community Guidelines

To keep this community safe and supportive:

  1. Be kind and respectful!
  2. Keep posts relevant to college admissions and high school.
  3. Don’t ask “chance-me” questions. Use CollegeVine’s chancing instead!

How karma works