When you plan to write your college essay about divorced parents, you may be concerned about the practicality and appropriateness of the topic. This essay topic seems to be something that a lot of people ask about. Usually, they ask this:

“Is it okay to write my college essay about divorced parents?”

Here’s our honest opinion: writing your college essay about divorced parents is okay if –and only if– it demonstrates that you are a wise investment to the university ROI-wise.

Okay, so that sounds sort of weird, right? Why not give a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer? What the heck is an “ROI”? What does any of this even mean?

Well, as admissions experts, we’ve seen how the college admissions process can be much more complicated than that. The line between a good essay topic that can sway the admissions decision from rejected to accepted –or accepted to rejected– is very thin. There are no cut-and-dry formulas that can guarantee acceptance or rejection. However, there is a fundamental mindset you should adopt when writing your college essay about divorced parents.

Think of the admissions process from a utilitarian perspective. Remember: at the end of the day, you are sending your applications and transcripts because they are tools to help the university screen you. The admissions office has a duty of screening your value as a candidate to their university. You can choose to write your college essay about divorced parents as long as you show that you are a good return of investment (ROI) to the school. That means the school should have a good reason for reserving a spot for you in their institution, investing money on you, spending professor time on you, and accommodating you.

You need to show that your college essay about divorced parents makes you a great candidate for that.

Therefore, the question should not be “can I write my college essay about divorced parents”. Instead, it should be, “how can I write my college essay about divorced parents in a way that makes me the best asset to the school?”

Sounds difficult, right? “What if they think I’m too whiny?” “What if it doesn’t make me seem strong?”

Trust us. There are some fantastic college essays about divorced parents that we’ve seen and edited. Some of these essays managed to help students get into fantastic schools like Berkeley and USC. We’ll show you how to do exactly that below.

Table of Contents:

1. The Anatomy of a Good College Essay About Divorced Parents.
2. How to Avoid Being Cliché.
3. Demonstrating Value as a Candidate in Your College Essay.
4. The Danger of Mental Instability and Unsafe Family Background.

The Anatomy of a Good College Essay About Divorced Parents.

There are many things that make a good college essay. All college essays must demonstrate some value to the admissions office, and show how you are someone worth investing in. However, the anatomy of a college essay about divorced parents can differ.

We’ve deconstructed the parts that make up a good essay about this topic. Here is a general outline of what you should have.

1. A strong hook that stands out from the rest of the sob stories.
2. An introduction that reveals some of what happened with the divorce.
3. A deeper articulation and description of what exactly that felt like.
4. A section covering the insinuation behind what had happened.
5. Demonstrating how you have grown or surpassed the obstacles of divorce.
6. How does this make you a great candidate for the school.

We understand that the college admissions essays are not always long enough to contain all six of these sections. Sometimes you’ll be limited in your word count, and have to make sacrifices along the way. Or, you’ll have to make things shorter.

One of the things you should definitely have in your college essay, no matter the topic, is at least some insinuation –whether implied or written clearly in a single paragraph– about why your experience makes you a good fit for the school (i.e. why you’re worth investing in).

How to Avoid Being Cliché.

One of the dangers of talking about family problems in your college essay is writing something that comes across as cliché.

With how competitive college admissions processes are in the past few years –and how they’re getting harder with every passing year– it is critical that you have a method of standing out amongst the crowd more now than ever before. Should you write an essay that sounds cliché, you won’t be able to stand out as well. The college admissions essays are an asset. They are the only section in your whole college application that gives you the chance to talk your way into college outside of measurements like GPAs and test scores. If your essay sounds too much like what others write, you won’t be able to capitalize on the essay section as much as you could have to differentiate yourself from the rest.

So, how does one avoid being cliché when writing their college essay about divorced parents?

The first order of business is to recognize that despite many applicants who also have divorced parents, your experience is different from the rest. You may have gone through a similar event in your life along with others, but your experience and manner of processing the emotions are different. Let’s look at an example.

• Dario: Mother divorced father due to the father’s hot temper. Dario’s big takeaway is his lack of a father figure, and learning to cope with that.
• Anatoly: Mother divorced father due to the father’s hot temper. Anatoly’s big takeaway is his trust issues due to feeling abandoned by both family members.

Notice how both applicants have something similar in their experience? Just because they experienced something similar does not mean they will be affected the same way. Thus, just because someone has a similar topic to your essay does not mean it will immediately be cliché. Your experiences and emotional struggles are unique. Therefore, to avoid being cliché, you need to write in detail about what your experience was like.

If your experience made you feel more lost due to lack of a parental structure, you should be specific about those feelings. Perhaps your experience was different because said feelings made focusing on school difficult for you; however, you managed to learn how to cope and succeed academically despite the familial struggles.

However it is you plan to make your college essay stand out amongst the rest of the applicants writing about family divorce, you should make sure that it is hyper specific about its details. If you do not know whether you’ve written your college essay well enough, consider scheduling a free consultation with us over the phone. We will get back to you within 24 hours.

Demonstrating Value as a Candidate in Your College Essay.

This is going to be the most important part of writing your college essay about divorced parents.

As we said in the beginning of this article guide, the college admissions process boils down to a calculation of whether you are a good candidate ROI-wise. That means that the essays need to frame you as someone who is a wise investment. Think to yourself: why would the university you’re applying for want to bother investing their time, money, and resources giving you an education?

There are a number of ways you can answer this. I’ve listed a few below.

1. Accepting you as a student would give the university good press.
2. Accepting you as a student would revivify a part of the school that needs development. (not enough people of color, a stem culture that needs more business acumen, etc)
3. Accepting you as a student would greatly contribute to the school’s department which you’re applying for.
4. Accepting you as a student would improve the overall sociability of the school, thereby improving the experience of other students and creating a positive ripple effect.

Okay, now let’s take a look at how we’re going to write a college essay while demonstrating our value as a worthy candidate to the university. Think about the topic of being a child of divorced parents. What was your experience like? What did it do to you as a result? In what ways have you grown and developed as a person over time? Is there a way that growth experience can be translated to your future experience at university? In other words, think in this order:

That last step is the crux of your execution. You need to show that the lessons you’ve learned or the experiences you’ve developed from your parent’s divorce reveals some strength or skill applicable to the school.

So, let’s say that you want to write about your relationship with your family turning sour after a messy family divorce. You’e realized your mother had been keeping an affair with your father. This has inexorably ruined your relationship with women as a whole, and you’ve struggled to have a healthy relationship that views women in a positive light without judgment. Thus, you’ve gone on a personal journey with your father to rekindle your relationship with trusting women as a whole. Through this, you’ve discovered critical feminist theory, and had constructive discussions with people who were willing to have uncomfortable conversations with you about rekindling your trust issues with women. Today, you are someone who champions a hybrid of feminist critique as an antidote to negative toxic viewpoints of women. You also hope to use these philosophies to help other struggling men who feel that they have developed a strained relationship with the opposite sex.

The Danger of Mental Instability and Unsafe Family Background.

This is a red flag that you should be careful about.

When writing your college essay about divorced parents, you should consider the possibility of a Sword of Damocles. Whilst writing this essay topic, the admissions officers may have the idea that a broken family due to divorced parents can lead to mental instability and unsafe conditions at the back of their mind.

With the rise of mental health issues amongst students, the admissions offices at universities must take extra consideration when tackling issues such as mental health. In particular, they have to be more careful now than ever before about letting in students who they believe may be a threat to the community due to mental instability. Therefore, it is imperative that you establish in the essay that despite having a family of divorced parents, you are in no way potentially posing an issue to the school.

That means reassuring that your academic performance is unaffected, and in the future you will be safe and secure with no extraneous issues.

If you are struggling to write a good college essay about divorced parents, you may want to consider speaking with a professional college essay editor and advisor. Contact us for a free consultation. We will get back to you within 24 hours, and can provide you with a free review + advising on your application essay.