college essays about religious trauma

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Guest Essay

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.”

This made him feel that he was at a disadvantage because he was competing with kids on the same academic level who had faced even more adversity. So the question on his mind, for a long time, was “How can I oversell myself?” He explained that this was an experience not talked about enough: students of color trying to become poster children for trauma and pain. The focus becomes no longer who you are as a person but rather “are my challenges enough,” as Mr. Sinckler said, “and will this give me value?”

Mr. Sinckler asked me, “Who are you?” He urged me to question what actually makes up my identity, because while struggles are important, they’re not my only contribution. He felt that students of color glorifying their hardships is selling trauma with scholarship “dollar signs behind it.”

I also spoke to a friend about her application to N.Y.U. She wrote about experiencing homelessness at one point in her life. I asked how she felt as she wrote about that, and she said that it was “difficult to write, rather forced — and I had an interesting experience rereading it when I graduated, because I had sort of programmed myself to think of myself as less-than, as inferior.” Her application described her poverty, her living briefly in a shelter, as well as her dad not being present in her life. I asked why she wrote about her hardships, and she said, “Because I had to get into school and advisers emphasized, like, sell your pain.”

“It was a flex,” she said, to go to a prestigious school like N.Y.U. “But I didn’t feel like I should have been there.” She had the grades, she had the credentials, but she lacked self-esteem, partly because she forced herself to write about moments in her life she wasn’t proud of. So for the longest time she felt her N.Y.U. acceptance was undeserved. She would stay under the radar in classes, instead of making her presence known. Her essay had become an internalized mind-set.

I spoke to one of my younger brother’s teachers, Aaron Jones, who also attended Morehouse, and he said, “Teachers promoted it” — the personal statement about hardships. But he wanted to show the admissions officers what he was capable of and decided that if he wrote about his neighborhood in Annapolis, Md., “it would put me in a box.”

This box was the clichéd story of a Black kid in America. Mr. Jones said that if he had wanted to go to a P.W.I. — a predominantly white institution — then a sob story would have been more important, but since he wanted to go to a historically Black institution, he could showcase his abilities. He emphasized that students of color have more to offer than the cliché. He said, “The sob story can be truth, but it’s not all said all.” He argued that college is the gateway to experiencing a fresh start and that bringing old baggage with you only limits your growth. He ended up writing about a teacher who had mentored him since the fifth grade.

Mr. Sinckler, my friend who went to N.Y.U., Mr. Jones and I had gone to different high schools, and we had all been given the same message. But it wasn’t just the advisers; I was hearing it from family and neighbors. Everyone around me seemed to know this was what colleges were looking for, to the point where it didn’t even have to be spoken. I felt like the college system was forcing us to embody something that was less than what we are. Were colleges just looking for a check on a checklist? Were they looking for a slap on the back for saving us from our circumstances?

As I kept rewriting my personal statement, it kept sounding clichéd. It was my authentic experience, but I felt that trauma overwhelmed my drafts. I didn’t want to be a victim anymore. I didn’t want to promote that narrative. I wanted college to be a new beginning for me. At the time, my mom, a part-time health aide, was taking care of a patient who used a wheelchair. My mom was sometimes unable to pick him up at the bus stop, as she was just getting off her second job, so I took on that responsibility.

I would wait for her patient at the bus stop; I would make sure he ate, and I would play music for him until my mom got home. I also wrote about my relationship with my middle school janitor. I used both of these stories to show the importance of diversity and the value of respecting everyone regardless of physical ability, status or class. After writing this, there weren’t any feelings of regret. I felt free.

Trauma is one of life’s teachers. We are molded by it, and some will choose to write about it urgently, passionately. Yet I would encourage those who feel like their stories were written in tragedy to rethink that, as I did. When you open your mind to all the other things you can offer in life, it becomes liberating. Let’s show college admissions officers what they’re missing out on, not what they already know.

Elijah Megginson is a graduating senior at Uncommon Charter High School in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, who is still choosing between several colleges for the fall.

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• Nov 17, 2020

What is Religious Trauma?

Updated: Mar 26, 2021

Earlier in 2020, the Board of Directors of the Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR), in partnership with independent researcher Maggie Parker of Agnes Scott College, began a massive psychological and sociological study into religious trauma that involves over 30 scholars and researchers.

Click to Support the Religious Trauma Project

What is the Religious Trauma Study?

The Global Center for Religious Research has established the world's first and most comprehensive psychiatric research group to study the causes, manifestations, and treatment options for those suffering from "religious trauma" (RT). This scientific study is being conducted by a team of over 25 internationally-recognized specialists in the field of trauma research, including medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, university professors, neuroimagers, and religion scholars. The study will consist of each specialist contributing a chapter of original research to a large-scale textbook that will cover topics such as:

why the study of RT is important;

historical, social, and cultural aspects of RT;

issues in defining RT;

causes and triggers of RT;

physical, psychological, interpersonal, and emotional manifestations of RT;

effective treatments for RT.

Additionally, with enough funding, this psychological study intends to conduct at least ten fMRI sessions with patients suffering from RT in order to look for patterns in trauma-related brain activity that will allow scientists to detect and analyze the effects of RT on patient behavior and brain chemistry.

Objectives of the Study:

The objectives of this Religious Trauma Research (RTR) project include:

examining the relationship between fMRI data and symptoms to allow for quantitative predictions of clinical psychopathology related to RT;

informing the clinical assessment of trauma-exposed individuals by providing an accurate and objective quantitative estimation of religious psychopathology;

providing professional counselors and therapists a better understanding of the neurological effects of religiously-related suffering and how best to treat victims or RT;

utilizing a national sociological survey to identify the number of people in the U.S. who suffer from RT;

creating a diagnostic tool for use in clinical settings in order to help identify patients who suffer from RT;

publishing the results in both textbook and peer-reviewed academic journal formats for wide-spread dissemination and use.

Intellectual Merits of the Study

The intellectual merits of this Religious Trauma Research (RTR) project include:

providing the first clinical definition of “religious trauma” from an international committee of experts and practitioners in the field of trauma research, which intends to distinguish it from other diagnosable afflictions, such as PTSD;

taking an interdisciplinary approach by involving professional sociologists and religion specialists to elaborate on the historical, social, and cultural aspects of RT;

exploring many of the physical, psychological, interpersonal, and emotional manifestations of RT with special attention to differences in children and adult sufferers;

examining the role that power differentials have on marginalized groups, such as racial minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community;

establishing guidelines in diagnosing and promoting best-practice treatments for patients suffering from RT.

On Sunday, November 8, 2020, the North American Committee on Religious Trauma Research (NACRTR) had come up with an official definition to help characterize the nature, scope, and meaning of "religious trauma." The official definition is as follows:

" Religious trauma results from an event, series of events, relationships, or circumstances within or connected to religious beliefs, practices, or structures that is experienced by an individual as overwhelming or disruptive and has lasting adverse effects on a person’s physical, mental, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being."

Help Support the Religious Trauma Project

If you would like to help fund this scientific research on religious trauma, simply click here to make a donation and share this blog post with all your friends and family across all your social media platforms.

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Religious trauma: Signs, symptoms, causes, and treatment 

Reviewed by Brooks Baer, LCPC, CMHP

Last updated: 02/12/2024

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What is religious trauma? 

• A person experiences a trauma:  The trauma may be directly related to religion, such as sexual assault by a religious leader, or it may be indirectly related or unrelated, such as a divorce in the family. 
• The trauma has religious implications:  The effects of the trauma are processed through the lens of a person’s religion. Someone going through a divorce may feel pressure from their faith community to work harder, make unwise compromises, or even tolerate abuse to keep the marriage from dissolving. They may be told that their standing in the faith community or their relationship with their god is at stake. 
• The response of the religious community may retraumatize:  Religious leaders may ignore or outright deny reports of physical, sexual, emotional, or spiritual abuse. The religious community may ostracize the victim of a trauma, claiming it was somehow deserved, decreed by their god as necessary, or not that bad in the grand scheme of things. The victim may avoid sharing their experience for fear of what it could mean for their place in the faith community. 

What is religious trauma syndrome (RTS)? 

What is spiritual abuse , signs of spiritual abuse .

• Has someone ever used or attempted to use my religious beliefs or practices to manipulate me into certain actions? 
• Am I free to practice my faith at home? 
• Has a parent or partner ever tried to force their religion on me? 
• Have my religious leaders ever tried to justify domestic violence or protect known abusers? 
• Has my boss ever limited my ability to work or the opportunity for promotion based on my expressed belief in, or disavowal of, a certain faith? 
• Have my religious leaders ever recommended I stay in an abusive or harmful situation in order to grow closer to my god? 
• Do I have freedom of choice in how I live my life, raise my children, interact with my partner, and so on, or are those decisions made for me by my religious leaders? 

Spiritual abuse vs. religious trauma: What’s the difference? 

10 symptoms of religious trauma , 1. self-hatred , 2. shame , 3. perfectionism , 4. hypervigilance , 5. difficulty with making decisions , 6. loss of community , 7. lack of boundaries , 8. delayed social milestones , 9. sexual dysfunction , 10. mental health disorders .

• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)  
• Depression  
• Anxiety  
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)  
• Eating disorders  
• Addiction  

What causes religious trauma? 

• Enduring the trauma/spiritual abuse 
• Leaving the faith community 

Is religion necessarily traumatic? 

• A sense of community and belonging 
• Reflective practices that encourage rest and meditation  
• Love and support for those who are marginalized, grieving, or struggling 
• Emphasis on moral values, such as love, compassion, forgiveness, and empathy   

Healing from religious trauma 

Religious trauma therapy .

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)  
• Cognitive processing therapy (CPT)  
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)  
• Prolonged exposure therapy 
• Radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO-DBT) 
• Somatic therapy  
• Faith-based therapy  

Other tips for recovery 

About the author

The editorial team at therapist.com works with the world’s leading clinical experts to bring you accessible, insightful information about mental health topics and trends.

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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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• Testimonials

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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The rise of the "trauma essay" in college applications

• personal growth
• mental health

Writing About Trauma in College Essays

• Sasha Chada
• May 29, 2023

Table of Contents

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A recent TEDx talk by Tina Young entitled: The Rise of the “Trauma Essay” in College Applications caught my attention, as many of the points she raises are ones we have discussed with our students, especially those in our Laurel Scholars program, which seeks to help the otherwise underprivileged in their college applications. 

She raises some important points, but we want to discuss the phenomenon of trauma essays in a slightly different light, and explore why colleges want to hear about your struggles. We’ll seek to contextualize this need in the application process, and explore how you can share it with colleges without making it the core of your identity or application process. 

Why Colleges Care About Trauma

The truth underlying the TEDx talk is simple: trauma essays often work, and are successful in helping students get into college. This leads to many students, both those who have experienced trauma and those who haven’t, feeling like they need to discuss challenges they’ve faced and overcome in their essays to have a shot at getting into college. This is not the case. 

Essays about overcoming challenges often work because they function well as college essays. A good college essay tells admissions officers who the applicant is, what their values are, and tells an interesting narrative to convey this information. Stories about overcoming challenges are often narratively compelling (just look at most popular TV shows and movies, and see how many challenges those characters face). While this is far from the only way to write a strong college essay, it is easy to see why some students feel compelled to write one.

That said, colleges do care about struggles you may have faced which have impacted your educational progress. This is because all students are analyzed in context, and their achievements are measured against the opportunities they were presented with. To show how this works, let’s compare two fictional students. 

Students A and B have the same grades and test scores, though student A has taken far more advanced courses in math and science. Student A has also interned at several labs, and has their name on a number of research papers. Student B has some extracurriculars, but for the most part has not done much outside of school beyond some part-time employment. 

Here is where context matters. Student A attends a top private school, one with extensive support for extracurriculars and advanced academic opportunities, including support for independent research and help finding internships. Student B, on the other hand, attended a poorly funded public school, one without the budget for arts, much less advanced options. They had to help take care of siblings after school, and worked part time to help their parents pay bills.

In light of this context, which student’s academic achievement means more? Does this explain the extracurricular gap?

While students should not feel forced to devote their essays to discussing past hardships, nor are those the only topics they can write about in essays. That said, admissions officers only know what you tell them, and this kind of context about challenges you have faced can and does substantially impact your chances of acceptance.

How to Write About Trauma

So what to do, if you have context you want to provide, but are hesitant (understandably so) to delve into past bad experiences in so personal a way as the best essays require?

In these cases, we recommend using the Common App’s additional information section, which exists for this purpose explicitly. The additional information section is not an essay, but is instead a place to factually describe any circumstances or challenges you have faced, personally or educationally. You may or may not have overcome these challenges; that is not at issue. Rather, colleges want to understand who you are, and the situation you’ve come from.

Generally, the additional info section is used to discuss the following: 

• Additional activities or extracurriculars that did not fit elsewhere
• Medical issues which have impacted your education
• Extenuating or remarkable circumstances
• Learning differences which have impacted your education

Note that you do not have to include an additional information section if you do not wish to, and you do not have to divulge personal information outside your comfort zone. The goal is to provide information to allow admissions officers to evaluate your accomplishments in the light of what you have done.

Here are some examples of extenuating or remarkable circumstances which students can describe in this section. This is not an exhaustive list, but serves to show the kinds of situations students have discussed before: 

• How a parent’s death, illness, or injury impacted them, and what additional responsibilities they had to take on within their household because of it.
• What responsibilities you had within your household normally, above and beyond normal chores, including things like caring for siblings or taking care of major household responsibilities, such as meal preparation.
• If you were unable to participate in extracurriculars due to familial or other responsibilities, or monetary constraints. 
• If language barriers or cultural clash were a barrier to your education, due to your immigration status.
• If your education suffered disruptions due to circumstances outside of your control.

Again, this section is not an essay, but instead a place to simply and factually explain your circumstances, and how they affected you. There does not need to be an excess of detail, or descriptions of how you overcame an issue if you did not. That said, if you have worked to address or overcome a challenge, you may include that as well.

The Trouble With Trauma Essays

In the TEDx talk, the presenter rightly points out that requiring students to discuss and unpack their trauma in college essays can be harmful. It produces false expectations for what their essays should be, and places an undue burden on students to discuss topics they may not be comfortable with. She also rightly points out that not all challenges are overcome, and not all of them can be neatly tied up with a bow and presented in the form of an essay for admissions officers.

These are legitimate concerns, but we do believe there is also a need for students to share some of their struggles with admissions officers. While we do strive to give students equal opportunities to succeed, the truth is that not all schools have the same level of funding and resources, and not all of them are able to offer the same opportunities to their students.

On top of this, each student has their own unique struggles, some far more than others. The circumstances of your life do not need to define you, but they can shape the opportunities you are provided. The relative weight of an accomplishment must be judged based on the resources of the student doing it.

Admissions officers are only humans, but there is a push to make college admissions more fair. Part of the difficulty in this is trying to judge the relative accomplishments of students. The more information they have about you, and what you’ve gone through, the better they will be able to evaluate your accomplishments, and evaluate you in the proper context. 

Final Thoughts

There is sadly no easy way to resolve the problem of trauma essays in college admissions. While students should not feel the need to recount every challenge they have faced, there is a legitimate need to provide context for your accomplishments to admissions officers, especially if your life circumstances have impacted your academic or extracurricular involvement. Even if they haven’t, your achievements are made more impressive by what you have dealt with in accomplishing them.

While college applications are difficult for students regardless of background, we do know that some students have better access to resources than others, or have unique concerns that impact their applications. If you want to discuss your own concerns with us, schedule a free consultation today. If you aren’t sure about that, consider checking out our pro bono offering: Laurel Scholars . In either case, we look forward to hearing from you, and helping you with your collegiate dreams.

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‘I will never be considered human’: the devastating trauma LGBTQ+ people suffer in religious settings

Sessional Academic, University of Sydney

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As the government prepares to push through its controversial religious discrimination bill this week, serious questions have been raised about protections for gay and transgender students in faith-based schools.

It comes after Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane faced criticism for sending enrolment contracts to parents with gender and sexuality clauses comparing homosexuality to bestiality and paedophilia. The contract was revoked and the principal has stood aside.

Another private Sydney school also came under fire for a “statement of faith” with its enrolment applications that listed same-sex relationships and transgender identity as being “not acceptable to God”.

These schools are not attempting anything new. The practice of excluding LGBTQIA+ people from religious spaces has a long, winding history.

As a gay man and pastor who previously held a conservative view, I wanted to undertake research to understand the experiences of people who have navigated this complex terrain. I interviewed 24 LGBTQIA+ people who had all spent time in a range of conservative Christian denominations, many of whom had grown up attending religious schools.

You could be forgiven for thinking LGBTQIA+ communities and the church are (as one of my participants said) “like oil and water” - never the two shall mix. But as many as 32% of same-sex couples in Australia identify as Christian , and increasingly, LGBTQIA+ Christians are having their voices heard.

The stories from the participants in my research are, almost across the board, vivid depictions of religious trauma.

Read more: Only 19% of Australians agree religious schools should be able to ban LGBT+ teachers

Understanding religious trauma

Religious trauma has been defined as “ pervasive psychological damage resulting from religious messages, beliefs and experiences ”.

Picture the teenage student at a faith-based school who has experienced a dawning realisation they are not neatly heterosexual. In this kind of environment, the student might be told on a regular basis their sexuality is broken and it is a source of shame or the work of Satan. They are warned against ever experiencing intimacy because doing so would be an indication they are not saved and are destined for Hell.

According to my participants, words to this effect are spoken gently by chaplains in the corridors, loudly by peers on the playground and formally by executive staff in the office. Gay people are compared with murderers. Trans people are depicted as threats to the order of society.

Parents absorb these messages and reinforce them, either explicitly or by their resounding silence.

In my research, one participant recounted a talk she heard at a church youth group as a teenager, just as she was just coming to terms with her sexuality.

It was a talk just about relationships […] and point seven of 15 was ‘being gay is not real’. It was such a confronting thing to hear when I was just at the pinnacle of realising what was happening for me, here was someone saying it doesn’t even exist. ‘It’s a disease that can be healed.’

Another young man talked about the trauma of his teenage years when he was forced to attend counselling.

That was probably the lowest point that it ever got, because it was just a constant barrage of being told that I am horrible, that I am never going to amount to anything in life. And because of this small difference, I will never be considered human, never be considered like everybody else, never be loved, never be accepted, never have a wife.

I asked another young woman what she would like Christian leaders to understand. She replied:

They are not being driven to the edge of suicide because of what they believe, but I am, because of how they have treated me.

My research found LGBTQIA+ people may encounter dozens, or even hundreds of these moments, in any given week or month in their daily lives. These are moments when the individual recognises they are not in a safe environment.

Over time, large and small moments like this ( often referred to as microaggressions ) accumulate and a person’s mental health almost inevitably deteriorates. Research shows young queer people exposed to religiously motivated messages are alarmingly more likely to express thoughts of self-harm and suicidal ideation .

What queer Christians need to feel safe

By virtue of being part of a marginalised community, queer Christians don’t necessarily have the benefit of social supports and protective factors available to the broader population.

The very people who should be providing safety and protection (their parents, teachers and pastors) are, in many cases, actually inflicting the harm. Behavioural scientists recognise this experience as a form of minority stress . As one participant shared,

When you’re in a Christian school, the last thing that you expect is full-on bullying from your own Christian teachers and leaders. They are the ones that you want to reach out to for help, but they were the last people that I wanted to go to and the last people that I felt safe around.

All of this is built on an interpretation of the Bible that asserts God designed all humans to be straight and cisgender - anything else is a form of “brokenness”.

Read more: New research documents the severity of LGBTQA+ conversion practices — and why faith matters in recovery

It is important to note, however, some of the most critical voices against Citipointe have been other Christians ( many of them connected with the school ).

This is testament to a large (and growing) portion of the church which has sought to understand the Bible in light of scientific research into the nature of gender and sexuality.

Legislative solutions are only one remedy to the complexities of LGBTQIA+ exclusion. As a society, we must continue to seek to understand these issues without falling into the “Christians versus queer community” trap.

And while identifying these experiences as trauma is vital, the path to healing can only come when queer people feel safe to connect in faith communities without threat of exclusion. Religious leaders must now grapple with how to navigate this path. Change is happening, but the path to inclusion is far from complete.

If you or anyone you know has self-harmed or thought about it, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

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Articles & Advice > College Admission > Blog

How to Approach Tragedy and Loss in Your College Essay

You may feel compelled to write about a difficult subject for your college essay. Here are some tips to write about hard topics with respect and impact.

by Keaghan Turner, PhD Partner, Turner+Turner College Consulting

Last Updated: Mar 16, 2023

Originally Posted: Aug 5, 2019

Tragedy and loss are not easy subjects to broach in writing at all, let alone very public writing that someone else will read or hear spoken. Writing about tragedy and loss certainly won’t be for everyone, so make sure you give it some real thought before you try to dive in and put your jumbled, high-emotion thoughts to page. But if a difficult topic is the one that compels you to write a great admission essay, then it can be done—as long as it’s done the right way. Before we explore the key elements to writing about traumatic experiences the right way, here’s some perspective through a personal story of loss.

The struggles with writing about loss

One spring, there was a rash of suicide attempts at a local high school in my community. Two of them were successful; others were not. The first time I wrote about this loss was for a memorial service. This is the second time. It’ll never be “easy” to write about, just as what happened will never make sense to anyone who knew the victims. How can we use words for trauma and grief in order to make sense of what doesn’t make sense?

One student, in a mature spirit of activism, wrote an open letter to the school district office, which was posted and reposted all over social media until there was a school assembly featuring officials, professionals, and faith leaders open to the whole community. The Parent Teacher Organization gave out green ribbons to raise awareness about depression and other mental illnesses . Most immediately for the teens in my town, the words appeared via social media posts. That was how the students wrote about their loss in the weeks following the first (then six weeks later, the second) tragedy. Some students will write about it for their college essays, and they’ll need help. It’ll be important to them to do a good job, to honor the memories of their friends who passed away, to get it “right.”

To say the least, people had mixed feelings about these posts and reposts; about what should be discussed and how; and how to protect the grieving families from more suffering. It’s a small community, and these were shockingly sad events. The fact is, these tragedies have already fundamentally redefined the high school experience of the students in my town. The ripples might be subtle or pronounced, but they exist. Peers will mark time using these losses (midterms happened  before , prom happened  after ), and the experience will not be forgotten; it’s now part of their life stories.

Related:  Mental Health: What Is It and How You Can Find Help

How to tackle writing about tragedy the right way

Difficult topics can ( and should) be broached in admission essays because they are a part of life that can’t be ignored and often play a huge part in defining who we are as people. What I told those students about handling loss with their words is summed up below, and it also applies to writers tackling any kind of special need, medical condition, or family struggle in their college essay.

Be honest and straightforward

You don’t need to have been super close to a tragedy to be affected by it or to write about it effectively. But don’t pretend you were affected in a way you weren’t; you’ll come across as phony. If you’re moved to write about a painful event, there’s a genuine reason behind that impulse. That reason is good enough; figure out what it is. That being said, powerful life events require quick-hitting, direct sentences. Be like Hemingway, my professors used to say—keep your sentences short; they have more punch that way. You don’t need lots of flowery or figurative language to convey that your subject is a big deal—but at the same time, do make sure you’re showing, not telling, in your writing . Connecting emotionally is about expressing that time through actions and events, not just thoughts and feelings.

Find your message with the right words

Superfluous language gets in the way of gravity. Be ready to prune drafts until you feel you’ve found the right semantic fit for the intention behind your words. Your essay also needs a theme, a call, a purpose. The point isn’t simply to narrate a sad story in order to show the reader how sad it is (e.g., your essay’s message is not that teen suicide is tragic); rather, the point is to connect the sad story to the essay prompt you've chosen to address. The event itself essentially takes a backseat to the points you want to make about what it  means .

Be respectful

This is really the one ultimate rule, and if you do this, the other stuff can be worked out. In the context of the college essay, respect usually involves approaching your subject matter somewhat anonymously. Names aren’t necessary. If you’re engaging a serious, painful topic—and it involves others—be careful to write as circumspectly and thoughtfully as you can. When in doubt, ask someone whose judgment you trust (like a teacher or parent) to check it out for you.

Seek help for you or others

Is it easy to write about hard realities? Not at all—not in any context, not for anyone. But if you’re brave enough to try, you may find it to be transformative and therapeutic to articulate your experience as you process your grief and begin to heal. And the most important thing to remember is to take those emotions and experiences and use them to help others in the future before other tragedies strike. Writing about these situations can often shed light and inspire others to help people in need, which in the end is more crucial than anything else. If you have been affected by tragedy or are worried about a friend who is struggling, help is available. Contact the  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline  800-273-8255 or a trusted adult.

For more advice on college essays, check out our Application Essay Clinic , or if you’re in need of mental health advice, check out the tag “mental health.”

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About Keaghan Turner, PhD

Keaghan Turner, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Digital Writing and Humanistic Studies at Coastal Carolina University . She has taught writing and literature at small liberal arts colleges and state flagship universities for the past 20 years. As a managing partner of Turner+Turner College Consulting, LLC, Dr. Turner also counsels high school students on all aspects of their college admission portfolios, leads writing workshops, and generally tries to encourage students to believe in the power of their own writing voices. You can contact Dr. Turner on Instagram @consultingprofessors or by email at  [email protected] . 

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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

Would it be okay to write an essay regarding religious trauma? If so, would it be acceptable to include Bible verses?

I want to write an essay about the religious trauma I went through since I grew up in the church and how I escaped the internalized fear modern Christianity planted in me

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This would be okay, if it answers the prompt. Colleges would in fact find it interesting to read, and it could add a whole new aspect to the personality you portray in your applications. It's also fine to include some Bible verses.

Agree. Thoug it is more acceptable to do at religiously affiliated schools.

I think it would be okay to write about that if it has affected you and who you are. I think that you could include Bible verses, but don't overdo it. I wouldn't use too many words on that because those words didn't come from you and don't show who you are as well as your own words.

Hello there. Sure, if you want to write something about Bible - use always scriptures from this Book. Also my website can help you with that. For example, if you need some random Bible verse, use this page - https://mybibleverses.org/random-bible-verse/

Or any theme which you are interesting to write about, you will find here - https://mybibleverses.org/topics/

Good luck with your essay, and God bless you.

I think this is a risky topic simply because you don't know who is reading your essay. I think you should still write it so long as you have specific anecdotes that show how this was a unique experience you had with the religion as it's possible if you write too generally someone could be offended by your essay. Although I think you can write the essay I wouldn't quote bible verses because based on the premise it doesn't seem like it would be constructive to do so.

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‘Trauma-dumping’ or true to oneself? College applicants take on race in essays.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action left students of color uncertain how their race should figure into college essays. This year’s high school seniors had to forge new paths when it came to sharing aspects of personal identity.

• By Collin Binkley, Annie Ma, and Noreen Nasir Associated Press

March 27, 2024 | Chicago

When she started writing her college essay, Hillary Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. About being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana and growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. About hardship and struggle.

Then she deleted it all.

“I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.”

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. For many students of color, instantly more was riding on the already high-stakes writing assignment. Some say they felt pressure to exploit their hardships as they competed for a spot on campus.

Ms. Amofa was just starting to think about her essay when the court issued its decision, and it left her with a wave of questions. Could she still write about her race? Could she be penalized for it? She wanted to tell colleges about her heritage but she didn’t want to be defined by it.

In English class, Ms. Amofa and her classmates read sample essays that all seemed to focus on some trauma or hardship. It left her with the impression she had to write about her life’s hardest moments to show how far she’d come. But she and some of her classmates wondered if their lives had been hard enough to catch the attention of admissions offices.

“For a lot of students, there’s a feeling of, like, having to go through something so horrible to feel worthy of going to school, which is kind of sad,” said Ms. Amofa, the daughter of a hospital technician and an Uber driver.

This year’s senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action. The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court’s conservative supermajority found it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.

Still, the decision left room for race to play an indirect role: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote universities can still consider how an applicant’s life was shaped by their race, “so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability.”

“A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination,” he wrote.

Scores of colleges responded with new essay prompts asking about students’ backgrounds. Brown University asked applicants how “an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you.” Rice University asked students how their perspectives were shaped by their “background, experiences, upbringing, and/or racial identity.”

Wondering if schools ‘expect a sob story’

When Darrian Merritt started writing his essay, he knew the stakes were higher than ever because of the court’s decision. His first instinct was to write about events that led to him going to live with his grandmother as a child.

Those were painful memories, but he thought they might play well at schools like Yale, Stanford, and Vanderbilt.

“I feel like the admissions committee might expect a sob story or a tragic story,” said Mr. Merritt, a senior in Cleveland. “And if you don’t provide that, then maybe they’re not going to feel like you went through enough to deserve having a spot at the university. I wrestled with that a lot.”

He wrote drafts focusing on his childhood, but it never amounted to more than a collection of memories. Eventually he abandoned the idea and aimed for an essay that would stand out for its positivity.

Mr. Merritt wrote about a summer camp where he started to feel more comfortable in his own skin. He described embracing his personality and defying his tendency to please others. The essay had humor – it centered on a water gun fight where he had victory in sight but, in a comedic twist, slipped and fell. But the essay also reflects on his feelings of not being “Black enough” and getting made fun of for listening to “white people music.”

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to write this for me, and we’re just going to see how it goes,’” he said. “It just felt real, and it felt like an honest story.”

The essay describes a breakthrough as he learned “to take ownership of myself and my future by sharing my true personality with the people I encounter. ... I realized that the first chapter of my own story had just been written.”

A ruling prompts pivots on essay topics

Like many students, Max Decker of Portland, Oregon, had drafted a college essay on one topic, only to change direction after the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Mr. Decker initially wrote about his love for video games. In a childhood surrounded by constant change, navigating his parents’ divorce, the games he took from place to place on his Nintendo DS were a source of comfort.

But the essay he submitted to colleges focused on the community he found through Word is Bond, a leadership group for young Black men in Portland.

As the only biracial, Jewish kid with divorced parents in a predominantly white, Christian community, Mr. Decker wrote he constantly felt like the odd one out. On a trip with Word is Bond to Capitol Hill, he and friends who looked just like him shook hands with lawmakers. The experience, he wrote, changed how he saw himself.

“It’s because I’m different that I provide something precious to the world, not the other way around,” he wrote.

As a first-generation college student, Mr. Decker thought about the subtle ways his peers seemed to know more about navigating the admissions process. They made sure to get into advanced classes at the start of high school, and they knew how to secure glowing letters of recommendation.

If writing about race would give him a slight edge and show admissions officers a fuller picture of his achievements, he wanted to take that small advantage.

His first memory about race, Mr. Decker said, was when he went to get a haircut in elementary school and the barber made rude comments about his curly hair. Until recently, the insecurity that moment created led him to keep his hair buzzed short.

Through Word is Bond, Mr. Decker said he found a space to explore his identity as a Black man. It was one of the first times he was surrounded by Black peers and saw Black role models. It filled him with a sense of pride in his identity. No more buzzcut.

The pressure to write about race involved a tradeoff with other important things in his life, Mr. Decker said. That included his passion for journalism, like the piece he wrote on efforts to revive a once-thriving Black neighborhood in Portland. In the end, he squeezed in 100 characters about his journalism under the application’s activities section.

“My final essay, it felt true to myself. But the difference between that and my other essay was the fact that it wasn’t the truth that I necessarily wanted to share,” said Mr. Decker, whose top college choice is Tulane, in New Orleans, because of the region’s diversity. “It felt like I just had to limit the truth I was sharing to what I feel like the world is expecting of me.”

Spelling out the impact of race

Before the Supreme Court ruling, it seemed a given to Imani Laird that colleges would consider the ways that race had touched her life. But now, she felt like she had to spell it out.

As she started her essay, she reflected on how she had faced bias or felt overlooked as a Black student in predominantly white spaces.

There was the year in math class when the teacher kept calling her by the name of another Black student. There were the comments that she’d have an easier time getting into college because she was Black.

“I didn’t have it easier because of my race,” said Ms. Laird, a senior at Newton South High School in the Boston suburbs who was accepted at Wellesley and Howard University, and is waiting to hear from several Ivy League colleges. “I had stuff I had to overcome.”

In her final essays, she wrote about her grandfather, who served in the military but was denied access to GI Bill benefits because of his race.

She described how discrimination fueled her ambition to excel and pursue a career in public policy.

“So, I never settled for mediocrity,” she wrote. “Regardless of the subject, my goal in class was not just to participate but to excel. Beyond academics, I wanted to excel while remembering what started this motivation in the first place.”

Will schools lose racial diversity?

Ms. Amofa used to think affirmative action was only a factor at schools like Harvard and Yale. After the court’s ruling, she was surprised to find that race was taken into account even at some public universities she was applying to.

Now, without affirmative action, she wondered if mostly white schools will become even whiter.

It’s been on her mind as she chooses between Indiana University and the University of Dayton, both of which have relatively few Black students. When she was one of the only Black students in her grade school, she could fall back on her family and Ghanaian friends at church. At college, she worries about loneliness.

“That’s what I’m nervous about,” she said. “Going and just feeling so isolated, even though I’m constantly around people.”

The first drafts of her essay focused on growing up in a low-income family, sharing a bedroom with her brother and grandmother. But it didn’t tell colleges about who she is now, she said.

Her final essay tells how she came to embrace her natural hair. She wrote about going to a mostly white grade school where classmates made jokes about her afro. When her grandmother sent her back with braids or cornrows, they made fun of those, too.

Over time, she ignored their insults and found beauty in the styles worn by women in her life. She now runs a business doing braids and other hairstyles in her neighborhood.

“I stopped seeing myself through the lens of the European traditional beauty standards and started seeing myself through the lens that I created,” Ms. Amofa wrote.

“Criticism will persist, but it loses its power when you know there’s a crown on your head!”

This story was reported by The Associated Press. Annie Ma reported from Portland, Oregon.

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The lesson of Harrison Butker: Take words seriously, not kickers

The Chiefs specialist is entitled to the views expressed in his graduation speech, but misusing our language undermines its value

I’m sure I should be more upset about Harrison Butker , but he’s just a kicker. He’s not even a very influential member of his own team. He deserves a merely proportional response. The best reply to Butker is to make fun of him; kickers hate that. Turn his name into a verb. When you “butker” something, it means to botch an intellectual argument with clumsy hyperbole to the point of obnoxiousness. To get “butkered” means to be preached to by a dude with a zealot’s beard that looks like it was combed with a harrow.

A change.org petition is demanding the Kansas City Chiefs “dismiss Harrison Butker for discriminatory remarks” that he made at the Benedictine College commencement. It had garnered 126,000 signatures by Thursday. That’s exactly the wrong response — again, he’s just a kicker. It’s not like he’s the Bishop of Kansas City, he’s just a Kansas City Chief. You don’t fire a kicker for demeaning Taylor Swift as “my teammate’s girlfriend.” The right response is to sing Swift lyrics at him, preferably from “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”

Butker has every right to speak his faith and his mind and should be able to do so without fear of professional reprisal; he was representing only himself at a personal engagement at Benedictine. We’re always asking athletes to be role models, and it’s more than a little hypocritical to praise football players when they protest cops but to stifle one for being religious or conservative. Enough with the outrage over his beliefs. Who cares whether a kicker thinks a woman’s proper role is in the home, so long as you don’t have to live as a handmaiden in his household? I’m more concerned with his scaremonger, doomwatcher language. It’s his symptomatic inflationary alarmism that’s worth worrying about.

The cheapening of words by public speakers across the spectrum has begun to rob us all of perspective — and of the art of proper contextual retort. Inflate the word “trauma” with enough overuse, and there’s no meaning left in it. Every experience is equated at the same cheap, low level: What should be merely mildly upsetting becomes equated with actual torture — which denies actual sufferers recognition of their legitimate pain. Butker’s a victim of that: He’s just a kicker. But he’s guilty of it, too. The personal conduct of anyone who does not comport with his faith is “degenerate.”

Inflated words are throughout his speech. Butker drops calumnies like nickels. President Biden is “delusional” for the way he practices his faith. Pride Month is a “deadly sin.” Those who quest for diversity are engaged in “tyranny.” He is fighting against “the cultural emasculation of men.”

In Butker’s view, women are too encouraged to define success as attainable only through professional rewards, rather than through family. A fair enough point. But here is the inflationary way that Butker phrased it to the young women in the audience that rendered it idiotic. “I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.”

Actually, here is a more appropriate use of “diabolical”: It describes the thousand-year persistence of teaching that young women are such dumb defenseless prey they cannot discern lies on their own and need a man with medieval monastic face hair to guide their morality and define their happiness. Even if he’s just an NFL kicker.

Inflationary language is, of course, inherently lazy. It’s the recourse of people who are trying to take shortcuts to power and influence. Butker is clearly over-striving for both, and, thanks to NFL hagiography, no doubt believes he’s equipped to lead. Sprinkled throughout his speech are grievances about government, and rather unnerving references to “the pervasiveness of disorder,” as if he’s the only man who can put us straight — forcibly. “If we are going to be men and women for this time in history, we need to stop pretending that the ‘Church of Nice’ is a winning proposition,” he says.

It was too bad that such an unrefined speech was delivered at Benedictine. The Association of Benedictine Colleges and Universities takes some pains to stress the thoughtfulness and nuance of their rich educational tradition and to avoid categorical certainties and hyperbole. Its website says that to be rightly shaped by the Catholic intellectual tradition means to be “unafraid of ambiguity or the unknown,” and it gives “special attention to Christ’s unexpected arrival from outside in the person of the guest.” It urges students to put aside their preoccupations “in order to let the unexpected person in.”

Sounds like a commitment to the “tyranny” of inclusiveness.

St. Benedict himself cautioned against “the wicked zeal of bitterness which separates from God.” Now there is an articulate statement that sums up the reductive harm of inflationary language. In a recent essay on St. Benedict, the Catholic abbot Marion Nguyen expanded on this thought, describing it as a “kind of false fervor” that emanates from those who believe in the perfection of their own worship, and think they have more rigor than you or I. Butker’s inflationary language smacks of that false fervor.

It’s important not to overreact to Butker with the same false outrage and overstatement. His personal belief about women’s true vocation is not threatening in the least, and neither is the sidelong dumbellism he showed in statements such as, “Congress just passed a bill where stating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.”

There is enough off-with-their-heads censoriousness in public life without recruiting a kicker into it. Keep Butker in his proper context, and scale. It’s the best way to fight inflation.