Before you begin writing about ADHD in your college essay, there are a few important details to consider about this strategy. Most people have a mixed experience with ADHD. Sometimes it affects their academics negatively, and sometimes it has a positive effect. It can even affect one’s social and personal life.
This makes ADHD an interesting college essay topic because it has such a diverse potential for unique stories and experiences.
Of course, there are some dangers to this essay topic. Thus, It’s crucial you know how to write the essay without falling for common pitfalls. This guide was made based on some of the tips and tricks we teach our clients who also wrote their college essays about ADHD.
Be sure to take careful note of each section, as we’ve catered these details to help you maximize your chances of getting accepted into your schools. If you have any questions or need help with your essay, feel free to ask our expert college admissions advisors and consultants.
Table of Contents
- Is it Okay to Write About ADHD in Your College Essay?
- How to Write About ADHD in Your College Essay.
- Example College Essay About ADHD.
- Final Thoughts.
Is it Okay to Write About ADHD in Your College Essay?
Writing about ADHD in your college essay is okay.
Well, sometimes it’s actually a great essay topic. It can even be a topic that helps you stand out amongst other competing applicants. There are a lot of unique attributes to ADHD that most people don’t know about; and, it can shed a better light on how you are a stronger applicant compared to others.
Writing a college essay about ADHD can also be a bad idea. Depending on your experience with it and, more importantly, how you describe it, the topic can actually be a disadvantage.
Most people who write their college essays about ADHD fall into the latter category. They don’t know how to capitalize on their condition because they only see the negatives that come with it. They also do not know how to demonstrate their learning condition is actually an advantage or how they can use their experience to show their strengths.
In the latter sections of this guide, we’ll cover just how you can write your college essay about ADHD in a way that helps your admissions chances.
How to Write About ADHD in Your College Essay.
Remember to Focus on Yourself.
It’s common for people to get too focused on the actual learning condition of ADHD instead of themselves. They’ll write about ADHD but they won’t discuss how their experience was and how they felt about it. The connection you have with your relationship with ADHD and its impact on your life is more important than the actual condition itself.
Now, that doesn’t mean you should only talk about what it was like without briefly elaborating on what ADHD is. After all, ADHD can manifest in different ways for different people.
Thus, it’s crucial that you briefly cover how ADHD manifests in your life in particular. If it made it easier for you to retain a large amount of information in a short amount of time, write about that. If it put a strain on friendships and establishing proper civil dialogue, write about that. If ADHD affected your ability to focus and therefore complete assignments in a punctual manner, write about that.
Be sure to make the majority of the essay about you and your character rather than the ADHD itself. You can think of ADHD as a sort of supplementary topic that leads up to the main character theme you want to demonstrate in the application essay. It serves the main topic, which is you. But, it is not the main topic.
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Creative.
Many college applicants are afraid to get creative. And, roughly speaking, this is for a good reason.
Most students don’t really want to write an unconventional essay that makes them stand out because standing out can be seen in a negative light. It’s possible for your creative essay to completely flop and not work.
However, we find that a lot of students with ADHD applying to college also happen to have a lot of creative ideas generated in their heads. They have a large pool of ideas to write about and they can afford to get creative since they already have a lot of creative ideas.
Remember, just because not all creative essays work doesn’t mean you still have to stick to it. If you write a creative essay and it doesn’t look impressive or seems too large a risk, you can always scratch out your draft and start anew. That’s the thing about being creative with your college essay: you can write content and let the idea die instead of your admissions chances. You can always start over.
If you need help drafting a creative ADHD college essay, or just want help writing about ADHD in your college essay as a whole, feel free to request help from our professional college admissions advisors and consultants.
How Does Your Journey With ADHD Make You a Qualified Candidate?
This doesn’t need to be explicitly said in your essay. But, you should imply that your experience with ADHD at least in some way makes you a qualified candidate for the school you’re applying for.
When reading over your essay, think about what your experience and journey with ADHD felt like. Consider all of the possible characteristics that can be drawn and inferred from your writing. Then, think of how said characteristics would make you a qualified candidate and a good fit for the school.
Does your journey with ADHD and your ability to adapt to your learning style make you capable of overcoming overwhelming obstacles through time despite adversity? Does changing the way you approach your ADHD show you’re someone with the open mindset needed to think outside the box in university? Does your ability to keep up with other students despite your ADHD make you someone who is formidable in mental stressors?
These are all attributes you may infer from your experience with ADHD. They also show the admissions office that you are a qualified candidate for the school who will succeed on campus, which is crucial to maximizing your success.
Don’t Expect Admissions Officers to Know What ADHD is Like. Explain in Detail!
This is a hard one, but we think this point is absolutely crucial to your application process.
Admissions officers are not omnipotent. They don’t know everything and they can’t read your mind. Thus, you need to show your readers what ADHD must be like instead of assuming they can infer your experiences for you.
Even if you detail what happened and the things going on in your essay on the surface, articulating the feeling and emotions you feel behind events is key. This is where things can get tough, as your unique experiences may be foreign to what people without ADHD must feel.
So, what do we do about this? How can we explain foreign experiences to others who have no knowledge of ADHD?
I recommend this.
- List out your experiences with ADHD that you want to talk about.
- Write down in broad terms what you felt and how it emotionally affected you.
- Abstract the emotions you felt and find parallels of this emotion to other experiences most people feel in everyday life.
Okay, so here’s an example.
- I struggled to communicate with people on the same wavelength due to ADHD because my attention would be easily distracted by far too many external stimuli in the outside world.
- I would feel inexorably isolated during hangouts with friends.
- The feeling of knowing you’ll get isolated or drowned out in a crowd is similar to the feeling of dread one feels before going to a party. Maybe things are okay for the first few minutes, but the dread of feeling like the awkward wallflower starts to creep forward. This is something everyone goes through when they enter a new place. Except, for me, it happens every day.
Note also that this is not the experience every person with ADHD goes through. Everyone’s personal experiences with ADHD are different. Thus, it’s up to you to articulate what it was like for you and translate it into something understandable and digestible for admissions officers.
Example College Essay About ADHD.
” “I’m going to say some words to you. Then, you’re going to tell me the first thing that comes to mind? Does that makes sense?”
“Yes.”
“Mountain.” “Mt. Fuji”
“Water.” “Lake.”
“School.” “Learning.”
In the middle of it, I notice the pen on the psychologist’s chest pocket was broken. The ink was leaking through the fabric, and the blotch grew wider in circumference in an assymetrical pattern. It resembled an elephant: those creatures of supreme strength. I can’t help but think of what ancient civilizations felt upon first witnessing a war elephant at battle. Charging tusks. Rope-like noses. Weird… trumpet noises?
“Thank you! You did well!”
A few months pass, and I would be transferred into a gifted and talented program where I learned… nothing. I would learn however how to capitalize on my “gifts” and regurgitate what I’ve heard in class to breeze through classes.
Then, actual work. Then, I have to really study. Then, I realize I never learned how to study. Then, I fail for the first time. Then, my world view about myself shatters. Am I actually talented at all? Or, was that just fantasy?
Then, I’d look up. It’s popcorn ceiling. White pebbles arrayed incongruently to make unusual patterns across the ceiling to distract my mind. One of them looks like a centaur shooting an arrow into the mouth of a snake.
This is what ADHD was like for me.
As someone who grew up not learning how to truly study for academics, I consider my background a disadvantage despite having been put in a gifted program. However, it’s not that simple. ADHD isn’t particualrly an advantage or disadvantage in that sort of monolithic manner. Instead, it’s a smorgasbord of unusual attributes which make studying in conventional learning environments unique to say the least.
Nonetheless, I didn’t learn how to overcome ADHD. Instead, I learned to understand it; then, I learned to wield it to my advantage.
As someone who struggled to stay focused on one particular event at a time, distractions were nightmarish. But, I came to terms with my proclivity to get distracted. I also came to realize that my mind was most productive and “fast” in processing information during the first 10-15 minutes of work. Then, my mental “processing engine” burns out.
So, over the years, I’ve crafted my own work method that follows a rotation pattern. Instead of focusing on one task indefinitely, I would make a lists of tasks I need to complete for the day. Then, I would rotate between taks in 10-15 minute intervals to maximize my productivity whilst capitalizing off of my proclivity to be distracted.
Having fought ADHD for quite a while, I realized that my condition is neither a curse nor blessing. Instead, it is a double-edged sword. It can be good, and it can be bad. However, its effectiveness does not depend on the sharpness of the blade; but, it is determined by the wielder behind it. At university, I hope to wield my ADHD with proper technique and care and, hopefully, not spill my ink blots all over my shirt.”
Example College Essay About ADHD
Final Thoughts.
When writing about ADHD in your college essay, understand that you have an interesting topic to write about. It’s easy to dismiss your experiences as something that many other students also struggled with. However, ADHD is a strange learning condition that affects people in many different ways.
Your experiences are unique. But, it’s up to you to articulate what those experiences were like to admissions officers. Perhaps more important than that is how your experience with ADHD shows you’re a strong candidate for the school.
Writing about ADHD in your college essay is no simple feat. There are many steps that need to be taken before the essay can be submitted. In addition, the topic demands a lot of brainstorming and introspection before it is ready to be written.
Know that the path will not be easy. However, it’s also no reason to give up on ADHD as a topic. If done properly, a college essay about ADHD can be very effective and even help admissions officers see you in a better light compared to the rest of the admissions pool.
Universities, especially those which are very selective such as those in the top 25 of the US News and World Report, are vying for the best backgrounds for their students. Strong topics like your struggle and adaptation to unfair disadvantages such as ADHD will give you a much-needed boost in your application.
If you are struggling with writing about ADHD in your college essay, we would highly recommend speaking with an expert college admissions essay advisor. Here at PenningPapers, we’ve helped countless students of all backgrounds write about unique topics in their college essays. These essays have also helped them get accepted into some of the most selective universities in the world.
