Admissions Q&A: Explaining personal challenges in the Common App
Admissions Q&A: Explaining personal challenges in the Common App
Greetings! This week we’ll unpack a heartrending-but-pragmatic admissions question. This Q&A is inspired by a recent thread on the College Confidential website, where I’ll be doing an AMA on October 1. Submit your questions for my AMA here!
Let’s meet in person! Upcoming public appearances 🎙️
Sept 25: Zibby’s Bookshop (Los Angeles, CA). Free author talk; click here to register.
Oct 1: College Confidential Forums (Online). I’ll answer questions from parents and teens; click here to submit your question in advance.
Oct 8: Butterfield Library (Cold Spring, NY). Free author talk; details here.
Oct 15: Watchung Booksellers (Montclair, NJ). Author talk; register here (tickets are $5, can be applied to a book purchase)
Oct 20: Scarsdale Public Library (Scarsdale, NY). Free author talk; details here.
Oct 24: Politics & Prose Bookstore (Washington, DC). Free author talk; details here.
Admissions Case Study: Handling difficult circumstances
Last week a friend forwarded me an anonymous College Confidential thread that was truly heartbreaking, especially because my friend’s daughter has classmates in similar situations.
Here’s a summary of the anonymous poster’s question:
Over the last two years my parents have kicked me out multiple times because of my sexual orientation. This hurt my grades and kept me from participating in extracurriculars because I was living with friends, sleeping in my car, etc.
I attend a religious school, and I’ve advocated for other LGBTQ+ students in my school’s newspaper. But I don’t want to tell my college counselor about my situation, because she might force me to quit activities or even tell my parents, and I’m scared of what might happen.
I saw in the Common App that some schools let me explain “special circumstances,” and I’m wondering if I should write about this there?
First I have to say, as a proud member of the LGBTQ community, as an educator, and simply as a human, my heart breaks for this student. I'm fortunate to live in an area where there are pride flags are everywhere and the local bookstore stocks all five volumes of Heartstopper, but sadly that's not the reality for many Americans today.
The basic admissions question this student is asking, however, is not actually about their sexual identity. Instead, they’re asking something that any kid – LGBTQ or not – might wonder, which is: How do I explain challenging circumstances in a way that will help (and not hurt) me?
That’s an important question, because many teens have experienced some kind of adversity that impacted their academic or extracurricular trajectory.
From an admissions strategy perspective, it’s also an interesting question because the answer sheds light on some parts of your child’s college application application that most parents aren't aware of—but which you’ll understand after reading this.
Essentially, there are three ways the student could address their situation. We’ll explore them one at a time.
I. The Counselor Letter
Here’s a fact that many parents aren’t aware of: in addition to their teacher recommendations, students also receive a letter of recommendation from their high school’s college counselor.
Whereas the teacher recommendations are academic, the counselor letter describes the student’s role in the school community and provides additional context for their academic and extracurricular record. (Here’s a great description of teacher vs. counselor recommendations, from the Common App.)
A good counselor letter can and should address any outside issues that affected a student’s performance. Often this letter is the best place to explain difficult circumstances, because the counselor can tell the story in a way where the student doesn't sound like they’re complaining or making excuses.
In this student’s case, the counselor letter would be the ideal place to explain the situation.
Except that it’s not, because this student doesn’t want to disclose this information to their counselor. So that brings us to option 2, which is…
II. The Additional Info Box
If you open up the “Writing” section of the Common App, right under the box where you paste in your personal essay, you’ll see a subsection where you can submit two additional pieces of writing.
The first is the Community Disruptions prompt, a short essay that was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s an opportunity to talk about how COVID-19 or natural disasters have impacted you, and should only be answered if necessary. (The Common App has a great summary of what should and shouldn’t be included in that box here.)
The second, longstanding prompt is an opportunity to write up to 650 words in response to this question:
Do you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application?
That is the additional info prompt (aka the “Additional Information Section”), and it’s something I would advise this student to look at closely.
First, it's important to note that what this prompt is not. It’s not an opportunity for your teen to pop off about anything they want want, and it’s certainly not a place to submit a second Common App personal essay (yes, some students try to do that).
Instead, this prompt specifically asks for two types of information: “circumstances” and “qualifications.”
Let’s start with the second category, “qualifications.” In this context, a qualification is additional information that would support a student’s candidacy and — this is key — is not reflected in other parts of the application.
For example, if a student has been extraordinarily busy and has more than 10 term-time activities and summer programs (10 is the max in the Common App activities list), I'll sometimes advise them to list the additional activities here.
If you decide to include additional qualifications, just use prudence and common sense. Admissions officers are experts at sniffing out résumé padding! Extra activities listed here should be substantive, not a club that your kid went to once in fall of freshman year.
The more important type of information that can be discussed in this box, however, would be “circumstances.” “Circumstances” are issues that negatively impacted what the admission officer sees in other parts of the application, i.e., the transcript, activities list, recommendations, test scores, and essays.
In other words, "circumstances” are exactly what this student is asking about: outside events that impacted their record — in this case both their academic trajectory and extracurricular involvement — and aren’t reflected in other parts of the application.
In the past, I've seen students effectively use the additional info box to address things like:
Personal medical issues
Family medical issues
Parental divorce
Moving to a new city/school
Undiagnosed special needs (e.g. ADHD)
Deaths in the family
Natural disasters (before the COVID prompt was introduced)
For this student, the most obvious step is to explain their situation in the additional info box.
However, as with everything in admissions, how you do something is as important as what you do. So if your child is considering writing something in the additional info box, here are two guidelines to keep in mind.
1. Don’t use it if there’s nothing to explain
In the past, I've had parents who wanted to use the additional info box to give more context about their child (e.g. they had ADHD, or a grandparent got sick one year) when there wasn't any obvious dip in their grades or extracurricular involvement.
In this case, it’s usually better to leave the box blank. There's no reason to provide extra information unless there's something elsewhere in the application you need to explain. If you’re telling an admissions officer about additional “circumstances” without a reason, it’s very unlikely to help you and, as you’ll see below, could even hurt you.
2. Don’t leave them hanging
A former Ivy League admissions dean (who was also a bit of a contrarian) once told me that he believed the biggest impact a student's personal essay could have on their application was negative: it could hurt their chances of admissions by accidentally disclosing a mental health issue.
Putting aside the ethics behind that statement (Are institutions of higher education really incentivizing seventeen-year-olds to HIDE their mental health issues? If so, that’s incredibly bad), there’s some useful advice in there, which is: avoid raising unnecessary red flags in your application.
I unpack this issue further in Write Yourself In (see p. 81, “Should I Write About Mental Health Struggles in My Essays?”) but the basic gist is: in most cases, writing about mental health issues supports a student’s candidacy only when the story is that they have resolved the problem and they have evidence to show it (improved grades, extracurricular participation, etc.).
The last thing a student wants to do in this section is disclose a mental health issue that leaves the admissions officer wondering if it's going to negatively impact their ability to thrive on their campus.
Now in the case of this particular student, most colleges no longer consider LGBTQ status to be a mental health issue (thank goodness). But depending on how the story was told, I could see this information raising a concern about the kid suffering ongoing trauma from being kicked out, unhoused, etc.
Resilience, however, is a personal quality that colleges value. In fact, it’s one of the Top Ten Qualities admissions officer seek (more on these qualities in Chapter 2 of Write Yourself In). So if I were advising this student, I’d want to make sure that any discussion of this incredibly difficult circumstance highlighted the student’s resilience throughout the ordeal.
There’s also a third, potentially stronger forum to address these issues, which is…
III. The personal essays
When they read your child’s personal essays, admissions officers are looking for a sense of who your child is as a person. They want to understand the human behind the numbers, grades, and lists.
Admissions officers also read the essays to gain a sense of how your child might contribute to their campus community, and one way they do that is by looking for personal qualities like resilience, community engagement, and empathy.
In my mind, a student who has faced incredible adversity, shown resilience in the face of it, and – even better – worked to help others in similar situations (remember that this kid advocated for other LGBTQ+ kids in their school paper) is exactly the kind of student that many colleges would want on their campus.
In fact, when I read this student’s story, my initial thought was, “Definitely counselor letter or additional info material, but wow, this could make a great personal essay.”
Now, this student may well have other things they want to write about in their personal essays. If so, great! But if I was advising this student, I would suggest that they consider writing about this topic, either in their Common App personal essay or a supplemental essay.
That suggestion, however, comes with two caveats. The first is that essays about difficult circumstances work best when the student can explain how they have learned and grown from the experience.
When many teens sit down to write about something challenging, their first impulse is is to describe how awful things were. This is completely understandable, but unless there’s also some reflection and growth, it’s unlikely to persuade an admissions officer to vote “yes.” (For more context here, see pp. 58-59 of Write Yourself In, in the section on “Purpose.)
The second caveat is that over the years, I've found that it doesn't usually work to write about recent trauma in college essays. Unless the trauma is far enough in the past that the student has done some healing/processing around it, most teenagers are unable to discuss it in a way that will strengthen their candidacy.
Let’s be clear: I am not a mental health professional, so I would never pretend to explain why this is the case. Rather, it’s been my experience as a writing coach and admissions counselor that essays involving incredibly difficult circumstances usually work best in an admissions context when the student has some distance – emotional and/or temporal – from the events they’re writing about.
Putting it together
So, what should this student do?
If I were advising them, and since they’ve ruled out the counselor letter, I’d probably start by explaining the two remaining options (additional info box & personal essays), followed by a conversation about how they felt they could best present themselves.
I might then suggest they do some freewriting, so they could see what parts of their story they felt comfortable writing about, and what parts felt too personal or sensitive to share in this context.
We’d also want to take a look at their transcript and activities list, both to see what their strengths were and to make sure that there were actually “dips” that needed to be explained in the additional info box.
Finally, we’d work together to come up with a plan for their essays that highlighted everything they might contribute to a college community—related to their “special circumstance” or not—so they could put their best foot forward and improve their odds of ending up at a college where they would flourish.
Side note: This Q&A was inspired by a real question from a real student. Unfortunately, as an admissions professional I’m not supposed to personally comment on threads in College Confidential forums (under CC’s T&C it could be considered solicitation of services). But that wouldn’t stop someone else from sharing this information there! This student clearly could benefit from well-informed advice, and I truly hope they find it. No one deserves to go through what this kid is going through, and they certainly shouldn’t have to go through it alone.
Have questions about college admissions?
Check out the September 4 issue of Admitted for tips on what parents of 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders should be doing this month to set their kids up for success.
You can also read my new book Write Yourself In from Simon & Schuster for insight into the entire admissions process and step-by-step guidance on all of the essays, or check out the free resources on my website.
And if you’re not a subscriber, join this Substack so you’ll receive my next issue with goals, priorities, and guidance for October.
Last but not least, check out the free admissions resources on my website (worksheets, articles, checklists, and other goodies).
As always, be well and keep in touch!
Eric
Write Yourself In: The Definitive Guide to Writing Successful College Admissions Essays
Available everywhere books are sold