college essays about trauma

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When I Applied to College, I Didn’t Want to ‘Sell My Pain’

By Elijah Megginson

Mr. Megginson is a high school senior in Brooklyn.

In school, most kids are told that they have the potential to do great things in life. They’re told the sky’s the limit. As I started to be recognized as a promising student, around eighth grade, I was told, “You’re smart and you’re from the hood, you’re from the projects, colleges will love you.”

When I heard this, I was confused. I always looked at being from the hood as a bad thing. It was something I was quite ashamed of when I was younger. So for my teachers and advisers to make it seem like it was a cool thing made me feel good inside, until I fully realized what they were talking about.

In my life, I’ve had a lot of unfortunate experiences. So when it came time for me to write my personal statement for college applications, I knew that I could sell a story about all the struggles I had overcome. Each draft I wrote had a different topic. The first was about growing up without my dad being involved, the second was about the many times my life was violently threatened, the third was about coping with anxiety and PTSD, and the rest followed the same theme.

Every time I wrote, and then discarded and then redrafted, I didn’t feel good. It felt as if I were trying to gain pity. I knew what I went through was tough and to overcome those challenges was remarkable, but was that all I had to offer?

Conflicted, I asked around to see what others had written. I spoke to my old middle school algebra teacher, Nathaniel Sinckler. When he was applying to Morehouse, he remembered, he “felt pressured to write about something I could oversell.” He knew enough to write about hardships he had faced, he said, but although “I didn’t have enough, I didn’t go without.”

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Dumping Your Heart Out: “Trauma Dumping” in College Application Essays

Exploring the advantages and pitfalls of writing the common application personal statement about traumatic experiences., reading time: 8 minute s, by  ayesha talukder , sophie zhou, issue 1 , volume 114.

Summer: a time of abundant sunshine, ice cream, and … college applications. Rising seniors pass the days constructing school lists, applying to scholarships, and studying to take the SAT one last time. However, there’s one part of the college application process that’s particularly stressful: essays. The number of essays a student will write will vary based on which schools one is applying to, but it’s common to write up to 20 essays . Arguably the best-known essay that students write is the personal statement, which is submitted through the Common Application portal. This portal is used by over 900 colleges and universities and has seven prompts that students can choose from, each of them meant to bring out a side of the applicant not showcased in other parts of their application.

One approach to writing the Common App essay has been dubbed “trauma dumping,” where students center their essay on personal traumatic events. This term has since evolved to include essays focused on any intense hardships that the student experienced (whether they resulted in psychological trauma or not), otherwise known as “sob stories.” For the purposes of this article, “trauma” will be used to refer to any hardship that had a long-lasting impact on the student. This essay-writing approach has been popularized by viral social media stories, where trauma essays are portrayed as the “make-or-break” factor in college applications; a well-known example is Abigail Mack, who went viral on TikTok after sharing her “ letter-S” essay about the loss of a parent. Mack was accepted to Harvard University.

Some students feel pressure to use trauma in their essays to make them stand out. Maggie Huang (‘23) is currently majoring in pharmacy at St. John’s University. “I think a lot of people treat [the college essay] as a major important thing in their life, like they have to sell themselves really badly and be like ‘I went through so much, I deserve to be here.’ [...] You're only 17, 18, so there’s not that much else you can talk about unless you did something really, really revolutionary,” Huang said. The pressure to stand out can be especially intense at a school like Stuyvesant, where there are countless high achievers and accomplished students. “When you hear about all the things your friends [...] are doing, [your own accomplishments] don’t seem impressive enough. I [felt] really very painfully average when compared to the rest of Stuy,” Huang added. 

By the time college application season arrives, essays are often viewed as the only thing on a student’s application that they still have control over. “Your grades are already your grades, your SATs are already your SATs, you’ve joined whatever clubs and pubs you’re going to join, so [the essay] feels like the last chance, the last thing that’s still up for grabs,” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said. Because of this, students often feel pressured to make up for the weaker points in their application by crafting a powerful essay.

Thus, trauma often becomes tempting as a way to stand out. “A lot of Stuy kids are immigrants, first generation, etc… or have had something bad happen (I mean, COVID was literally handed on a silver platter to us). Maybe it’s just me, but it feels easier to just write about that because it’s so much easier to make yourself seem inspirational and deserving of being in a school for having made it through that kind of experience,” Huang said. 

English teacher Mark Henderson agreed that including trauma in an essay is often presented as a means of earning a spot at a prestigious institution. “The whole college application process is really unfair to students and that aspect of it feels really gross to me. Students feel as though they are being asked to share things that are really hard to share with strangers in order to like, you know, win something—basically to win an acceptance to a college and all of that,” Henderson said.

However, others, such as Bill Ni (‘19), a graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and current software engineer at Amazon, believe that there isn’t any pressure to include trauma in college essays. “I don’t think there’s any pressure to use trauma … [However,] I still feel that it’s presented as an option, but it’s not something you have to, like, 100 percent use.” 

Ultimately, though, deciding whether to write a “trauma essay” should come down to the student’s own level of comfort with revealing a vulnerable experience in their life. This can be more difficult than students may initially assume. “If you’re writing about something traumatic in your past, exploring that topic in a piece can be traumatic in itself because you may, depending on what it is, be reliving it,” Ni said.

Ingenious Prep Associate Director of Counselor Enrollment and Communications Zak Harris agrees that it is crucial for students to think carefully about whether they are fully prepared to share their trauma. “If you’re going to go down this path, you have to be 110 percent behind yourself to some degree,” Harris said. Thus, it may be easier for students who have already worked through their trauma to mention it in their essays: “With students who are doing clubs and organizations, volunteering, [or] working for a nonprofit that connects to some of the issues that they’ve had, I think that’s where it’s a little bit different, because their day-to-day experience is sort of using that trauma [...] So that might be a little bit better than someone who is, I think, still navigating and figuring it out,” Harris added. 

Students should be aware that “trauma essays” can be controversial and aren’t well received by everyone. Some people caution against them because “trauma essays” can become too focused on the traumatic event itself and not on the student’s cultivated strengths. At Stuyvesant, senior English teachers dedicate an entire unit to helping students with their college application essays, often providing individualized feedback. “[My English teacher] said actively to avoid trauma dumping, because it’s so overdone and it doesn’t tell the college anything about you specifically,” Huang said. After hearing this advice, Huang switched gears with her essay. “Originally, it was about like a family situation and then it pivoted to my acceptance of my identity of being Asian-American in America, which is still kind of not completely trauma-free, but at least it wasn’t as bad as before,” Huang said.

Additionally, there is also the risk of admissions officers having biases against certain traumas, especially those relating to mental illness. “There are many colleges that have lawsuits going on against them right now connected to mental health issues and their slow reactivity to things that current students have been going through,” Harris noted. “Sometimes what happens in admissions is that if there's any risk, then I think there's going to be a pocket of people that will say, ‘Well, don't do it, because it's risky.’” However, this is slowly changing as mental health issues become more openly discussed and the stigma around them decreases. “I think we are in a generation and a time where mental health struggles and issues are widely talked about in a way that 10, 15, 20 years ago, they were not talked about as much, which I think actually is helping admissions officers become more comfortable or even more open to reading about these things in essays,” Harris added.

One way students can communicate relevant traumas to admissions officers outside of their essays is to ask their recommenders to include that information in their letters. “It's quite often, I find, when I'm writing recommendations, that [the letters] could be a really useful place for somebody else to sort of explain and put [traumatic events] into context, in the context of recommending them,” Henderson suggested.

If a student does decide that they want to write about trauma in their essay, they should be cautious of how they frame it. Students should make it clear that their goal is not to seek sympathy from the admissions officer, but to demonstrate how they’ve grown from their trauma. “The admissions officer [shouldn’t be] just focusing on what happened, but taking that into consideration [...] what's happening next, or what's happening now. How are they using this, you know, to better themselves or better other people?” Harris explained. 

English teacher Katherine Fletcher shared an example of when incorporating trauma in an essay can work to a student’s advantage. “I read a very effective college essay last year about this student’s struggle to overcome her challenge with obsessive compulsive disorder [...] and how she wants to sort of live a functional life in spite of those challenges.” By concentrating on growth rather than struggles, the student was able to impress Fletcher and leave a lasting impact.

However, students should consider avoiding including traumas in their essays because traumatic moments don’t always demonstrate the best aspects of one’s personality. “If I was applying to college or any other part of my life, I would not want to feel obligated to be judged on my worst moments,” Henderson said. “I would want to be judged on the moments I'm proudest of.” 

Grossman similarly believes that less intense topics can be just as powerful (if not more) than ones that address trauma. “One college essay I read that I really, really liked was my son’s. He wrote about [...] European castles and kind of like fantasized about what his life would be like if he could buy this one,” Grossman said. “I think the essay didn’t try to bare his soul [...] I don’t think that for the most part a college essay is for baring your soul. There isn’t enough room anyways—nobody’s soul is 600 words.” 

At the end of the day, there is no one person to listen to when it comes to essay topics but yourself. After all, the criteria used by admissions officers to judge essays isn’t clear-cut, and depends heavily on the individual admissions officer who reads the essay. “None of us have ever let anyone into college. So none of us will truly know that secret, like ‘Here’s the one essay that will get you in,’” Henderson said.

Ultimately, it’s important for students to remember to stay kind to themselves throughout the grueling process of writing their college application essays, whether or not they choose to write about their trauma. The approach to writing about trauma often recommended in college applications—that is, demonstrating one’s growth from it—might not always align with the healthiest approach for the student’s healing process, and that’s okay. After all, the personal statement is essentially supposed to hold a mirror to the applicant’s truest self, so whatever the student decides to put on the page should unequivocally be their choice and reflect the parts of themselves that they are most comfortable sharing. Whether that includes trauma or not, the admissions officer should come away from the essay feeling as if they have seen the applicant in the clearest and most authentic way possible.

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College Essays and the Trauma Sweetspot

Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. Discuss a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. If all else fails, explore a background, identity, interest, or talent so profound that not doing so would leave our idea of you fundamentally incomplete.

Exactly the sort of small talk you want to make with strangers.

American college essays — frequently structured around prompts like the above — ask us to interrogate who we are, who we want to be, and what the most formative experiences of our then-short lives are. To tell a story, to reveal ourselves and our identity in its entirety to the curious gaze of admissions officers — all in a succinct 650 words.

Last Thursday, The Crimson published “ Rewriting Our Admissions Essays, ” an intimate reflection by six Crimson editors on the personal statements that got them into Harvard. Our takeaway from this exercise is that our current essay-generating ethos — the topics we choose or are made to choose, the style and emphasis we apply — is imperfect at best, when not actively harmful.

The American admissions process rightly grants students broad latitude to write about whatever they choose, with prompts that emphasize personal experience, adversity, discovery, and identity — features often distort student narratives and pressure students to present themselves in light of their most difficult experiences.

When it comes to writing, freedom is good — great even! The personal statement can be a powerful vehicle to convey an aspect of one’s identity, and students who feel inclined to do so should take advantage of the opportunity to write deeply and candidly about their lives; the variety of prompts, including the possibility to craft your own, facilitate that. We have no doubt that some of our peers had already pondered, or even lived in the shadow of, the difficult questions posed by the most recurrent essay prompts; and we know the essay to be a fundamental part of the holistic, inclusive admissions system we so fervently cherish . Writing one’s college essay, while stressful, can ultimately prove cathartic to some and revealing to others, a helpful exercise in introspection amid a much too busy reality.

Yet we would be blind not to notice the deep, dark nooks where the system that demands such introspection tends to lead us.

Both the college essay format — short but riveting, revealing but uplifting, insightful but not so self-centered that it will upset any potential admissions counselor — and the prompts that guide it push students towards an ethic of maximum emotional impact. With falling acceptance rates and a desperate need to stand out from tens of thousands of applicants, students frequently feel the need to supply the sort of attention-grabbing drama that might just push them through.

But joyful, restful days don’t make for great stories; there are few, if any, plot points in a stable, warm relationship with a living, healthy relative. Trauma, on the other hand — homophobic or racist encounters that leave one shaken, alcoholic parents, death, loss and scarring pain — makes for a good story. A Harvard-worthy story, even.

For students who have experienced genuine adversity, this pressure to package adversity into a palatable narrative can be toxic. The essay risks commodifying hardship, rendering genuinely soul-molding experiences like suffering recurrent homelessness or having orphaned grandparents into shiny narrative baubles to melt down into a Harvard degree. It can make applicants, accepted or not, feel like their admissions outcomes are tied to their most vulnerable experiences. The worst thing that ever happened to you was simply not enough, or alternatively, it was more than enough, and now you get to struggle with traumatized-imposter syndrome.

Moreover, students often feel compelled to end their essays about deep trauma with a statement of victory — a proclamation that they have overcome their problems and are “fit for admission.” Very few have figured life out by age 18. Trauma often sticks with people far longer, and this implicit obligation may make students feel like they “failed” if the pain of their trauma resurfaces during college. Not every bruise heals and not all damage can be undone — but no one wants to read a sob story without a redemption arc.

A similar dynamic is at play in terms of the intensity of the chosen experience: Students feeling for ridges of scars to tear up into prose must be careful to avoid cuts too deep or too shallow. Their trauma mustn’t appear too severe: No college, certainly not Harvard, wants to admit people who could trigger legal liabilities after a bad mental health episode . That is the essay’s twisted pain paradox — students’ trauma must be compelling but not too serious, shocking but not off-putting. Colleges seek the chic not-like-other-students sort of hurt; they want the fun, quirky pain that leaves the main character with a new refreshing perspective at the end of a lackluster indie film. Genuine wounds — the sort that don’t heal overnight or ever, the kind that don’t lead to an uplifting conclusion that ties in beautifully with your interest in Anthropology — are but lawsuits in the waiting .

For students who have not experienced such trauma, the personal essay can trap accuracy in a tug of war with appealing falsities. The desire to appear as a heroic problem-solver can incentivize students to exaggerate or misrepresent details to compete with the compelling stories of others.

We emphatically reject these unspoken premises. Students from marginalized communities don’t owe college admissions offices an inspirational story of nicely packaged drama. They should not bear a disproportionate burden in proving their worthiness.

Why, then, do these pressures exist? How can we account for the multitude of challenging experiences people have without reductionist commodification? How do you value the sharing of deeply personal struggles without incentivizing every acceptance-hungry applicant to offer an adjective-ridden, six-paragraph attempt at psychoanalyzing their terrible childhood?

We don’t have a quick fix, but we must seek a system that preserves openness and mitigates perverse pressures. Other admissions systems around the world, such as the United Kingdom’s UCAS personal statement, tend to emphasize intellectual interest in tandem with personal experience. The Rhodes Scholarship, citing an excessive focus on the “heroic self” in the essays it receives, recently overhauled its prompts to focus more broadly on the themes “self/others/world.” We should pay attention to the nature of the essays that these prompts inspire and see, in time, if their models are worth replicating.

In the meantime, students should understand that neither their hurt nor their college essay defines them — and there are many ways to stand out to admissions officers. If it feels right to write about deeply difficult experiences, do so with the knowledge that they have far more to contribute to a college campus than adversity and hardship.

The issue is not what people can or should write about in their personal statements. Rather, it’s how what admissions officers expect of their applicants distorts the essays they receive, and how the structure of American college admissions can push toward garment-rending oversharing. We must strive for an admissions culture in which students feel truly free to express their identity — to tell a story they want to share, not one their admissions officers want them to. A system where students can feel comfortable that any specific essay topic — devastating or cheerful — will not place them slightly ahead or behind in the mad, mad race toward that cherished acceptance letter.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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Three Penny Press

No pain, no gain: the trauma essay in college applications.

Your story’s not tragic enough.

Your story’s not inspiring enough.

Your story’s not honest enough.

Your story needs to embody the underdog. You need to overcome adversity through a heroic struggle. That’s what colleges want, and that’s what you need to give.

Over the years, the college essay has evolved. This part of the college application was intended to allow the applicant to reveal their personality, but it now places a growing emphasis on the obstacles conquered and traumas survived.

But the problem doesn’t stem from students wanting to write about traumatic experiences. It’s rooted in the structure of the essay questions that not only encourage but practically expect applicants to overshare disturbing incidents.

The 2023-24 Common App essay asks you to recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback or failure. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. Discuss an event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself.

Exactly the things you would want to talk to strangers about.

It’s understandable that colleges are interested in the disadvantages of their students – it’s vital to a holistic evaluation, after all. However, this interest, and the awareness of it, has created a race to the bottom as students try to convince admissions committees that they’ve suffered more than the next applicant to stand out.

But students shouldn’t feel pressured to reveal their traumas in their college essays.

For those who’ve experienced genuine adversity, the demand to reveal private, shameful or even humiliating details about the past is highly toxic. It forces them to search through their worst experiences and relieve their traumas through writing, which can reopen emotional wounds and trigger panic attacks .

This shouldn’t be the case. Traumatic experiences are private and should remain private. Teenagers shouldn’t feel the need to share them just to attend college.

Moreover, the expectation for students to have a resilience story pushes them to don the mask of triumph even if their traumas are ongoing battles. They are incentivized to lie to themselves, distorting memories of traumas and pretending that they’re okay when, in reality, they may be far from it.

It’s degrading.

This demand to twist students’ worst times into a facade of a hero’s journey is humiliating. And it’s only made worse by the fact that they’re sending their darkest, most intimate moments for the scrutiny of strangers. Entrusting such personal stories to unknown admissions officers only adds another layer of discomfort and vulnerability in the application process.

In an interview with the Harvard Gazette , Emi Nietfeld, author of the memoir “Acceptance,” which retells her journey from a dysfunctional childhood to Harvard, writes that the college essay required her to “cash in on [her] sorrows.”

“I felt that the experience of having to take my life story and twist it into this narrative that would be considered acceptable [to colleges] was so dehumanizing that it left me wondering who I was,” Nietfeld said.

The unsettling truth is that the college essay commodifies peoples’ pain. Life-changing experiences become currency to be traded for college admission. The focus is no longer on you but on the price of your worst suffering.

This culture and mindset can entrap applicants with the belief that their admission outcomes are tied to the exposure of their most vulnerable moments. Then, the question becomes: are your challenges enough?

If you’re rejected, that simply means the worst thing to ever happen to you wasn’t.

Yet, the pressure of the essay extends beyond just those with trauma. For students without such experiences, the personal essay can romanticize the idea of suffering. Moments like the loss of a family member, a mental health breakdown or homelessness are reduced to “something good for your college essay.” This glorification erodes empathy, turning real struggles into nothing more than fodder for the college admission game, nothing more than exploitable trauma stories, nothing more than commodified chapters of adversity.

The story of Elijah Megginson highlights this romanticization. In his personal narrative , he writes about the constant reminders from his friends, family and counselors that his underprivileged upbringing would be his ticket to college. He was told: “You’re smart and you’re from the hood, you’re from the projects, colleges will love you.”

His father’s absence in his life. All the times his life was threatened. Struggles with dealing with anxiety and PTSD. To others, these experiences were nothing more than application points for college.

Furthermore, for those without trauma, there’s an incentive to spin their own tragic stories to compete in the race to the bottom. A student dealt an unlucky hand who managed to reach the same level of achievement as someone dealt a favorable hand is obviously the better applicant. The college essay becomes the perfect medium for competitive victimhood as students increasingly try to paint themselves as the underdog in the pursuit of that coveted admissions letter.

However, applicants are still young, and most of them don’t have traumatic experiences to tell. They’ve lived a relatively stable life, untouched by tragic hardships. But this lack of suffering causes many to feel like they’re at a disadvantage in the race to the bottom.

To feel that their life simply isn’t exciting enough. They don’t have those moments that steal the attention of the admissions officer’s lazy eyes. They don’t have those moments that spark a fire in the reader’s heart. They don’t have those moments that cause those who determine their future to root for them.

They are being punished for living a normal life.

But they still have to compete, still have to not fall behind the others in the game of one-downmanship, still have to fight for their admissions letter the only way they know works: oversell or even falsify details.

If they don’t have a trauma story, they’ll weave their own.

While the pressure to conform to the traumatic standards of college applications isn’t explicitly stated, it is undeniably felt due to the surrounding culture where students are expected to do anything in the pursuit of admission. This toxic culture, however, is a reaction to the existing system. The expectation that colleges want a movie-like story born out of traumatic experiences leads many to give them just that. Without altering the system, it’s impossible to transform the culture.

To put an end to the race to the bottom, colleges need to overhaul their prompts to be more abstract. A shift in expectations and questions will naturally yield different responses. The University of Chicago’s style of essay questions provides a viable model that should be adopted.

“Exponents and square roots, pencils and erasers, beta decay and electron capture. Name two things that undo each other and explain why both are necessary.”

Nowhere in the prompt does it ask students to unload their traumas. Nowhere does it ask students to reveal intimate details. Nowhere does it pressure students into a predetermined narrative.

These more speculative prompts give applicants the freedom to interpret the questions through the lens of their individuality. It invites personalized exploration of the topic, encouraging a more authentic expression of the unique personality, perspectives and character that define each applicant. These more creative essays provide a better glimpse into the person behind the pen.

But these prompts don’t prohibit students from delving into their traumas. If applicants feel comfortable and see it as crucial to portraying who they are, they can still choose to do so. However, unlike the current prompts, these abstract ones alleviate the toxic expectations imposed by the questions focused on trauma narratives, providing more freedom of expression.

This way, students can share willingly, not out of a sense of obligation.

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the fresh rizzler of bellaire • Feb 6, 2024 at 2:30 pm

thank you for writing this article. i feel like im being punished for not being low income when applying for colleges, and this helped alot

Jason Chen • Jan 22, 2024 at 12:05 pm

10 likes and no comments? let me fix that rq

The ‘T’ Word: Resisting Expectations To Share Trauma In College Essays

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When I applied to college in 2010, the message from high school counselors was clear: my college essay should emphasize my ability to overcome struggle. My identities were the admissions trifecta — Black, living in inner-city Detroit, and high-achieving — and discussing the trials and trauma I endured would help me get into selective institutions.

After graduating from college, I began my tenure as an admissions officer. Within months on the job, I saw how the personal statements of Black and other racially minoritized groups differed from those of white applicants. Why did prompts inviting applicants to creatively describe themselves invoke such different narratives? Black students highlighted their resilience through detailed stories of survival, while their counterparts wrote casual essays about service abroad and sporting championships. Black students discussed their pain; white students discussed their passions. These differences exposed the dissimilar messages that students received about how to represent their lived experiences, and the role institutions play in soliciting stories of trauma and struggle from applicants. 

Why did prompts inviting applicants to creatively describe themselves invoke such different narratives?

The preliminary findings from my doctoral research reveal that there’s more to the story. The growing discourse about college admission essays suggests that most Black students write about struggle or trauma. In interviews, Black undergraduate students expressed a keen awareness of this expectation. More importantly, many said they believed that this expectation was a racialized one. In analyzing hours of interview data, Black students attending both predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) revealed that various social actors such as counselors, teachers, college access organizations, and private admissions counselors encouraged them to write about their trauma as opposed to light-hearted topics. For those who did not feel that immediate pressure in their high schools, the media profiles of exceptional Black students who overcame harrowing odds to gain acceptance into selective institutions placed undue pressure and constraints on how Black students believed they could authentically tell their stories.

Nevertheless, nearly half of my interview participants reject the expectation. One undergraduate student attending an east coast PWI said, “I think many, especially our white peers, feel like Black students, especially at a top-tier school, had this kind of story. And, I think it’s okay to be a regular person. I don’t need to tell you my whole story. I am here, and that’s enough.” 

An HBCU student interviewed for my dissertation also felt pressured to write a struggle narrative. “I think sometimes you're writing for what you think somebody wants to know. And I  almost did, I almost wrote about some weird struggle that I've had.” Instead, this student reflected on her experience attending Barack Obama’s inauguration and her desire to study journalism. 

Aya walking up the stairs at the Senate House during graduation from the University of Cambridge in England.

When applying to college, Black students consider the white gaze or how white society perceives them beyond their four-year institutions. They enter the college admissions process carrying messages that link their lived experiences as Black people to racial discrimination, racial tropes, and stereotypes. The students interviewed in my research shared their commitments to authenticity, exposing the ways racism attempts to reduce Black students to a single story and how labels are imposed upon the stories they share in their college essays. My research — informed by my lived experiences, tenure in college admissions and college guidance, and data collection — examines how Black students navigate through a tangled web of paradoxes when applying to PWIs and HBCUs. As we enter the next admissions cycle, this work reveals opportunities for post-secondary institutions to embrace the heterogeneity of the stories and experiences that Black students and other historically underrepresented students bring to college campuses and to do so without exploitation, tokenization, and perpetuation of racial stereotypes.

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I am More than My Sob Story

Students should not be pressured to exploit their pain in college applications..

Rania Jones Visuals: Olivia Park 10.05.23: Unearthed , Forum

I am haunted by a lineage of four words: You are your trauma. 

My mom died a week into my senior year of high school. As I approached and navigated the chaos of the college admissions process, my whole world was fractured. Between drafts and drafts of varying personal statements, everyone around me seemed to know that the gaping grief-sized hole in my life was what colleges were looking for. I was expected to capitalize on this. 

The concept of students centering their college essays on their personal trauma has been dubbed “trauma dumping.” Viral social media stories have popularized this essay-writing approach, where trauma essays are portrayed as the “make-or-break” factor in college applications. 

When students compare themselves to the other applicants, they rank themselves against their peers in a form of trauma Olympics. Turning one’s pain into a self-sales pitch should never be the way to win over an admissions officer. The personal essay could be meaningful for students if they actually felt that any topic was available to them—as I reflect on my own college application process, however, I’m left wondering, is capitalizing on and benefiting from personal trauma unethical? Or is it a “glass-half-full” way of looking at things?

Founder and CEO of the Krupnick Approach and current college consultant Dr. Joseph Krupnick ’00 said, “The fundamental goal for getting into top schools is to differentiate yourself, to distinguish yourself, and to create your own hook … People who have traumatic experiences or who have an uncharacteristic life, or other experiences, that are also unusual, feel pressure to write about those things, because they are very personal and unusual.”

The majority of college applications consist of test scores, GPAs, and class rankings—all factors that shrink our beings into data points. It’s no surprise that essays are often viewed as the only thing on a student’s application over which they feel they have control. 

According to the College Board , colleges want “a unique perspective, strong writing, and an authentic voice,” from students in their application essay. Harvard Business Review says the Common App essay is “your chance to show schools who you are, what makes you tick, and why you stand out from the crowd.” 

The college application process is “intrinsically an intrusive process,” according to Krupnick. “And it’s intrinsically a process in which you’re telling people things that they have no right to know about. It’s kind of how the system seems to work now,” he explained.

The college essay should be a space for exploration and reflection where students can present what they care about and what makes them who they are. Yet, when students feel required to write about their adversity to stand out, the college essay allows for minimal amounts of meaningful self-reflection. This phenomenon narrows what applicants think is worth writing about, and more problematically, what makes them worth receiving the education they dream of. 

When a Harvard junior who wished to remain anonymous was asked if they felt a pressure to write about their eating disorder, they said, “I felt like I was able to write about it, from not a place of it being a sad story, but of actually about something pretty incredible that I was able to overcome.” They continued to explain that our society normalizes trauma in a problematic way, detailing that “people to try to compete with others” about their trauma.

Similarly, Abigail Mack ’25 went viral on TikTok after posting about her “Letter-S” essay about the loss of a parent. Stories like Mack’s contribute to the belief that in order to be a competitive college applicant, not only must students have endured trauma—they also must put it on display to be analyzed by admissions officers.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn race-based affirmative action puts an even harsher burden on applicants’ essays. Colleges no longer can consider the systems of inequity that may affect students of color, but individuals can include their experience as a marginalized person in the essay. Hopefully, future students undergoing college admissions will not feel as though they are at a disadvantage because they are competing with kids on the same academic level who have faced more adversity than them. No one should feel forced to disclose anything that they may have gone through. And students who do not feel they have experienced much adversity or hardship should be grateful, not bitter, and write about any of the other things that make them who they are.

Exploiting painful and traumatic moments in your life to “sell yourself” to a college will never work in your favor. An anonymous Harvard student shared a similar sentiment—“I think that like one of the things that my college counselor was like really trying to drive home was like ‘you can’t write a sob story, because they’re just going to read it and feel bad for you. Like there has to be, like a so-what, like what did it do to you, like why?’ ” she said. 

Never in the process of writing my college essays did I ask myself if writing about my mother’s death would give me admission clout. I knew what I went through was terrible and to overcome those challenges was remarkable, but a little bit of me will always wonder if Harvard thought my trauma was all I had to offer. Is who I am outside of my trauma still enough for Harvard, or were they just looking for a slap on the back for saving me from my circumstances?

Trauma-induced people should lean on the conflicts of their life only in authentic ways. I wrote about the most intimate moments of my life only because I know that I am not defined by my grief. Instead, it has helped shape who I am. I would encourage those who feel like their stories were written in tragedy to rethink writing about their trauma. You don’t want to become an applicant that colleges pity, nor will people value more if they can only sympathize with you. The admissions officer will not be just focusing on what happened, but will take into consideration what’s happening next, or what’s happening now. 

* Quotes have been adjusted to account for filler words and grammatical correctness. Rania Jones ’27 ( [email protected] ) has shamelessly published her traumatic college essays for public reading.

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Trauma dumping for college acceptance.

When I was applying for college in 2021, personal statements confused me. The process of writing the perfect personal statement seemed to be riddled with rules: Don’t write about anything generic, show your accomplishments and how you overcame hardship, but not in a flashy or blatantly egotistical way. At 18, I didn’t know how I could possibly showcase my identity while still humble bragging to universities for their acceptance. Scrolling through many examples of personal statements, I reached Harvard’s Successful Essays of 2018. I was surprised to read deeply personal, tragic and heartfelt stories of adversity and resilience. By comparison, I had nothing substantial or emotional to offer.

Personal statements are an integral part of the college admissions process, allowing prospective students to exhibit their identity beyond extracurriculars and GPA. Personal statements also allow students to divulge deeply personal and traumatic events, painting them as transformative experiences that shaped their character. While students should be allowed to write about adversity, why should they be pressured to reveal and commodify their trauma to universities for admission?

The Viral Trauma Essay

In 2021, an admitted Harvard student’s personal statement went viral on TikTok.   Accumulating over 25.1 million views, the essay focused on hating the letter ‘s’ because it reminded Mack of losing her mother to cancer. Despite her loss, she writes that she “stopped running away from a single ‘S,’ and began chasing a double ‘S’—paSSion … I was shackled to ‘S’ as I tried to escape the confines of the traditional familial structure.” Her essay ticks all of the boxes of the perfect personal statement: it creatively answers the prompt, displays her exceptional writing skills and signifies her identity and resilience in the face of tragedy.  

Many users were in awe of her essay, commenting, “Well at least now [I know] how high the bar is” and “Never gotten chills from an essay until now.” Yet some also made light of her personal statement, joking that “I don’t have a sad story so I guess my college essay will be bland” and suggesting “Divorce so my child has ideas to write [about] for his college essay.” Undoubtedly, however, Mack wholeheartedly deserves her acceptance and was not simply accepted into Harvard because of her personal statement. In response to a comment , she explains that her hard work and abundance of extracurriculars also made her a great candidate for the university. Although Mack’s personal statement is exceptional, it also prompts the question of why students are expected to write exceptional essays that neatly package up their pain and circumstances.  

Understanding and Commodifying Trauma — At 18 Years Old

Moreover, the idea that all traumatic events can be converted into positive learning experiences is simply a byproduct of toxic positivity. Tina Yong, a student at the University of British Columbia, jokes about what trauma-dumping personal statements sound like in her TedTalk : “But don’t feel bad, through the magical, healing powers of extracurricular activities and pure perseverance, I stand before you today a new woman: healthy, healed, and extremely employable.” Personal statements encourage an element of superficiality: one has to overcome adversity and reach a happy, satisfactory conclusion. Although writing about adversity can aid in the healing process, it can also lead students to relive their trauma and be pressured to repress any negative emotions in their personal statements.  

However … Trauma Dumping Works

Students would not be trauma dumping if it were not a viable option for college acceptance . Although it does not guarantee admittance, writing a strong college essay to bolster one’s chances certainly doesn’t hurt. After all, a memorable narrative can elicit sympathy from college admissions officers and showcase your writing skills in one fell swoop. However, this normalization of exploiting personal adversity undermines the true purpose of the personal statement: to holistically determine a student’s identity outside of academics.  

Will Perceptions Regarding Trauma Dumping Change?

Personal statements provide an opportunity for students to showcase their personalities and experiences; the rise of trauma dumping threatens to distort their true purpose. Furthermore, it brings into question the entire ethics system of college admissions. Educational institutions must consider whether they are inadvertently perpetuating a culture that sees personal suffering as character growth. It is crucial to reconsider the criteria for evaluating applicants. This could perhaps start with reconstructing the prompts on overcoming past adversity so they focus on an applicant’s character and accomplishments. Moreover, college admissions should also be more transparent in their process, ensuring that they are not favoring essays on personal hardship. As Yong enforces in her TedTalk, “You are more than the bad things that happened to you … I wish for everyone to one day have [the ownership] over their stories, and now it’s up to universities to decide whether they get to tell it.”  

Emily Chang, Wellesley College

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13 Reasons Why It’s OK to Write About Trauma in your College Applications — And How to Do So (a joint post by AdmissionsMom and McNeilAdmissions)

Hi everyone. This post is written by me, AdmissionsMom and McNeilAdmissions , TOGETHER. It’s a subject we both care about. We (your dynamic college-co nsultant duo) took up pens together to write what we believe is the first collaborative advice post in the sub’s history. Yay!  Enjoy and thanks for reading. 

Content warning: discussion of traumatic subjects: suicide, sexual abuse, trauma, self-harm

There is always a debate about what topics should be avoided at all cost on college essays. The short-list always boils down to a familiar crew of traumatic or “difficult” subjects. These include, but are not limited to, essays discussing severe depression, self-harm, eating disorders, experiences with sexual violence, family abuse, and experiences with the loss of a close relative or loved one.

First and foremost, you do NOT have to write about anything that makes you uncomfortable or that you don’t want to share. This isn’t the Overcoming Obstacles Olympics. Don’t feel pressure to tell any story that you don’t want to share. It is your story and if you don’t want to write about it, don’t. Period.

BUT, in our view, ruling out all essays that deal with trauma is wrong for two big reasons.

The first is that there is no actual, empirical evidence that essays that deal with trauma are less successful than those that don’t.  The view that essays dealing with trauma correlate with lower admissions rates is based on counselor speculation and anecdotal evidence from students who applied, weren’t admitted, then tried to find a justification and decided it was their essays.

Both of us reflected on this. Here’s what we had to say.

• AdmissionsMom : I work with lots of students who have suffered from anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and addiction. They nearly always have to address their issues because of school disruption, and I have to say that their acceptances have remained right in range with the rest of my students.
• McNeilAdmissions : I counted, and I can provide more than 17 accounts about students of mine who have written about trauma and been admitted to T10 schools. I also asked a colleague of mine who is known as the “queen of Stanford admissions” and she said there was no trend among her students.

The other big reason is that traumas, while complex, can be sources of deep meaning, and therefore are potentially the exact sort of thing you want to consider . Traumatic experiences are often life-shaping, for better or for worse. So are the ways that we respond to and adapt in the face of trauma. The struggle to adapt and move forward after a traumatic experience may be one of the most important and meaningful things you’ve ever done. So a blanket prohibition on traumatic topics is equivalent, for many, to a blanket prohibition on writing an essay that feels personally meaningful and rewarding.

Categorically ruling out trauma stories also conflicts directly with  the core lesson  that most college consultants and counselors (including ours truly) are trying to advocate. That is, write a story that matters to you. This is a piece of corny but non-bullshit advice. As it turns out, it’s a rare moment (in a process that can be somewhat cynical) where meaning and strategy overlap. AOs want to read good essays. Good essays are good when they’re written about things that matter. You can attempt to hack together a good essay on a topic you don’t care about, but good luck.

So there are a few big intersecting threads about why you MIGHT want to write about your experience with trauma. First, there is no empirical evidence to recommend against it. Second, traumatic experiences are huge sources of personal meaning and significance, and it would be sad if you couldn’t use your writing as a tool for processing your experience. Third, meaningful essays = good essays = stronger applications.

So for anyone out there who wants to talk about their experience but who is struggling with how to do it, here are some things we want to say:

• You ARE allowed to talk about trauma in college apps.
• Your story is valid even if you haven’t turned your experience into a non-profit focused on preventing sexual assault, combating abuse, or eating disorders or done anything whatsoever to address the larger systemic issue.  Your  story and experience —  your  personal growth and lessons learned — are intrinsically valuable.

Now, here are some things to keep in mind if you decide to write an essay about a challenging or traumatic subject.

13 Reasons Why It’s OK to Write About Trauma in your College Applications —  And  How to Do So

• Colleges are not looking for perfect people . They are looking for real humans. Real Humans are flawed and have had flawed experiences. Some of our most compelling stories are the ones that open with showing our lives and experiences in less than favorable light. Throw in your lessons learned or what you have done to repair yourself and grow, and you have the makings of a compelling overcoming — or even redemption — story.
• Write with pride : This is your real life. Sometimes you need to be able to explain the circumstances in your life — and colleges want to know about any hardships you’ve had. They want to understand the context of your application, so don’t worry about thinking you’re asking the colleges to feel sorry for you (we hear kids say that all the time). We recognize you for your immense strength and courage, and we encourage you to speak your truth if you want to share your story. Colleges can’t know about your challenges and obstacles unless you tell them. Be proud of yourself for making it through your challenges and moving on to pursue college — that’s an accomplishment on its own!
• Consider the position of the admissions officer :  “We’ve all had painful experiences. Many of these experiences are difficult to talk about, let alone write about. However, sometimes, if there is time, distance, and healing between you and the experience, you can not only revisit the experience but also articulate it as an example of how even the most painful of experiences can be reclaimed, transformed, and accepted for what they are, the building blocks of our unique identities.

If you can do this, go for it. When done well, these types of narratives are the most impactful.  Do remember you are seeking admission into a community for which the admissions officer is the gatekeeper. They need to know that, if admitted, not only will you be okay but your fellow students will be okay as wel l.”  from Chad-Henry Galler-Sojourner ( www.bearingwitnessadmissions.com )

• Remember what’s really important : Sometimes the processing of your trauma can be more important than the college acceptances — and that’s ok. If a college doesn’t accept you because you mention mental health issues, sexual assault, or traumatic life experiences, in my opinion, they don’t deserve to have anyone on their campus, much less survivors. Take your hard-earned lived experiences elsewhere. The stigma of being assaulted, abused, or having mental health issues, is a blight on our society. That said, be aware of any potential legal issues as admissions readers are mandated reporters in some states.
• Consider using the Additional Info Section : If you do decide you want to share your story — or you need to because of needing to explain grades, missed school, or another aspect of your application or transcript, don’t feel compelled to write about your trauma, disability, mental health, or addiction in the main personal essay. Instead, we encourage you to use the Additional Info Essay if you want to share (or if you need to share to explain the context of your application). Your main common app essay should be about something that is important to you and should reveal some aspect of who you are. To us (and many applicants), your trauma, disability, mental issues, or addiction doesn’t define you. It isn’t who you are and it isn’t a part you want to lead with.

Putting some other aspect of who you are first in your main essay and putting trauma, addiction, mental health issues, or disability in the Add’l Info Essay is a way to reinforce that those negative experiences in your life don’t define you, and that your recovery or your learning to accommodate for it has relegated that aspect of their experience to a secondary part of who you are.

• You CAN use your Common App essay if you want:  IF you feel like recovery from the trauma or learning to handle your circumstances  does  define you, then there is no reason you can’t put that aspect of who you are forward in the main personal essay. If the growth that stemmed from the crisis is central to your narrative, then it can be a recovery, or an “overcoming” story. It’s a positive look at your strengths and how you achieved them. If you want to place your recovery story front and center in the primary essay, that’s an appropriate choice.
• Write from a place of healing : Some colleges fear liabilities. So, wherever you decide to put your essay in your application, make sure you are presenting your situation in a way that centers how you have dealt with it and moved forward. That doesn’t mean it’s over and everything is all better for you, but you need to write from a place of healing; in essence, “write from scars, not wounds.” (we can’t take credit for that metaphor, but we love it)
• M ake sure your first draft is a free draft.  With any topic, it can be hard to stare at a blank page and not feel pressure to write perfectly. This can be doubly true when addressing a tough topic. For your first draft, approach it as a free write. No pressure. No perfection. Just thoughts and feelings. Even if you don’t end up using your essay as a personal statement or in the additional info section, it can be useful to sit and write it out.
• Establish an anchor. Anything that makes you feel safe while you’re writing and exploring your thoughts and experiences. Have that nearby. It can be a candle, an image, a pet, a stuffed animal.
• Check-in with how you are feeling.
• Pay attention to your body and what it’s telling you.
• Take breaks
• Go for walk
• Talk to someone who makes you feel safe
• Remember this kind of essay is NOT a reflection of you. It is only  part  of your story. (Ashley Lipscomb & Ethan Sawyer, “Addressing Trauma in the College Essay,” NACAC 2021)
• Who supported you in the aftermath of the experience? What did you appreciate about their support and what did you learn about how you would support others?
• Did your self-perception change after the experience? How has your self-perception evolved or grown since?
• How did you cultivate the strength to move through your experience?
• What about how you dealt with the experience makes you most proud?
• Remember that all writing is a two-way street and should serve you and the reader : All writing leaves an emotional impression or residue with the reader. This is especially true with personal essays. Good writers are able to look at their writing and understand how it can serve themselves (that sweet, sweet catharsis) while still meeting the reader halfway. This can be particularly challenging on the college essay, where your goal is to be both personally honest and to help an AO see why you would be a wonderful addition to their school’s student community. When you’re writing, be cognizant of your reader – tell your story
• Shield your writing itself from excessive negativity : When writing about difficult experiences, it can be easy for the writing itself (your phrasing, your diction) to become saturated with a tone of hardship and sorrow. This kind of writing can be hard to read and can get in the way of the underlying story about growth, maturity, or self-awareness. Push yourself to weed out any excessive “negativity” in your writing – look for more neutral ways of stating the facts of your situation. If you’re comfortable, ask a trusted reader to read your essay and point out the places where language seems too negative. Think of ways to rephrase or rewrite.
•  Think of your application — and therefore your essay — kind of like a job application. Sure, it’s more personal than a job occupation, but it’s not necessary to share every detail. Focus on the relevant information that validates the power of your journey and overcoming your challenges. Focus on the overcoming.

A framework for writing well about trauma and difficulty: “More Phoenix, Fewer Ashes”

Here’s a framework that we think you could apply to any essay topic about a traumatic experience or challenge. This is not a one-size-fits-all framework, but it should help you avoid the biggest pitfalls in writing about challenging topics.

The framework is called “More Phoenix, Fewer Ashes.” The metaphor actually comes from one of our parents who used to be active on A2C back when her kid was applying to college; she took it down in her notes at a Wellesley info session. In short, however, the idea is to pare down the “ashes” (the really hard details about the situation, past or present) to focus on who you’ve become as a result.

• Address your issue or circumstance BRIEFLY and be straightforward. Don’t dwell on it.
• Next, focus on what you did to take care of yourself and how you handled the situation. Describe how you’ve moved forward and what you learned from the experience.
• Then, write about how you will apply those lessons to your future college career and how you plan to help others with your self-knowledge as you continue to help yourself as you learn more and grow.
• Show them that, while you can’t control what happened in the past, you’ve taken steps to gain control over your life and you’re prepared to be the college student you can be.
• Remember to keep the focus on the positives and what you learned from your experiences.
• Make sure your essay is at least 80% phoenix, 20% ashes. Or another way to put this is, tell the gain, not the pain.
• The ending, overall impression should leave a positive feeling.
• Consider adding a “content warning or trigger warning” at the beginning of your essay, especially if it deals with sexual violence or suicide. You can simply say at the top: Content Warning: this essay discusses sexual violence (or discussion of suicide). This way the reader will know if they need to pass your essay along to someone else to read.

Use that checklist/framework to read back through your essay. In particular, do a spot check with the 80/20 phoenix/ashes rule. Make sure to focus on growth!

Good luck and happy writing,

AdmissionsMom and McNeilAdmissions ( www.McNeilAdmissions.com )

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

I agree with both of You! When we experience a traumatic event, it can be difficult to share our experiences with others. We may feel like we are the only ones who can understand what we went through. We may feel like we are the only ones who can help ourselves heal. But sharing our experiences with others can help us heal and can help prevent further trauma. Although, for me, it’s ok to share. If you can’t, then there’s nothing bad about that. After all, it’s difficult to get back to your dark past.

I love your perspective. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here!

Do you think if you write about a parent who was abusive, they can somehow contact the parent or something? I don’t wanna get in any trouble.

They might have to because of their state laws. I’d research that and talk to your school counselor.

As someone who works closely with high school students, I will definitely be sharing your article with them. It’s a valuable resource that can help them navigate this important aspect of the college application process with confidence and integrity.

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How to Write About Trauma in my College Essay?

So, I want to talk about my childhood experience in a somewhat bad household, but how should I talk about it without making it seem like a sob story but not being so vague that the college AOs are confused?

Specifically, my dad was an alcoholic and I want to mention how I was able to “win” through that situation by making toys and stuff out of his beer boxes and later connecting that to my passion of creating illustrations and telling stories, but idk how i’m supposed to write about him without making it too focused on him…

Should I even mention him?

I think you have a great topic in your hands (I’m sorry that you had to grow up in that situation but it makes a memorable essay topic). Especially with the great nuances of you creating toys and “stuff” with beer boxes, you could craft a powerful essay with a bit of effort. Obviously you don’t want to make this about your dad because then it turns into a bit of a sob story unless you write it well in my opinion, but if I were you I would mention your dad somewhere in the beginningish of your essay because your dad being the reason you had a somewhat bad household adds to the idea of overcoming adversity seeing as to how dads are supposed to have a positive impact on their child’s life. (I’m not saying your dad didn’t but it doesn’t look that way based on your description)

I think you can do this essay. Focus on your creativity and your unique hobbies. I like the toy part and your hobby of illustrations and telling stories. I think it could work. More readable than a covid essay in my opinion.

It certainly meets the criteria that if someone would pick up this essay (without your name on it) they would most certainly know you authored it.

And can you then look forward, and connect your creativity/hobbies/storytelling to your future plans?

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Trauma Essay Examples?

I was originally gonna write my essay on culture, but something happened a few days ago that shifted my perspective, and I want to write my essay on that instead. Does anyone have good examples of people who wrote essays on traumatic events?

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