Applicants worry about how to explain family circumstances

“Hi! I'm an international student, and my family has lived in six different countries due to my parents' contractual work as civil engineers. We currently live in Nepal, where we will stay until October 2027, when my parents' contract ends. However, I'm an Indian citizen, and my family's permanent home is in India. While filling out the Common App, I'm confused about whether I should list our current address in Nepal as my permanent address or mark it as a temporary addres”

“If I already wrote about my family situation in the additional information part of the common app, should I put it again in the writing part of the Rutgers application? It says "do you have any family responsibilities or circumstances, such as severe illness". The situation is that my brother struggled with addiction which sometimes caused an unstable home environment. I put it in the challenges and circumstances part of the common app but it doesnt seem bad/extreme enough for what the”

“Senior applying to T40 schools. Looking for honest takes, especially from anyone who’s read apps or dealt with a family situation like this. The situation: Throughout high school my mom has had frequent, unpredictable mood episodes. She’s never been diagnosed or treated. They could happen daily, weekly, or after a calm month, and when they did I’d drop whatever I was doing to stay with her and make sure things at home stayed safe. I’m doing fine now and have support. This is purely an applicatio”

“In qualifying circumstances, the student would need to petition and prove they are independent and not in contact with their parents for various reasons, like separation due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment that did not result in state care (which is documented). [re: FAFSA as a 19 year old 'dependent']”

“Under my challenges or circumstances I had this listed: “I had difficulties with transportation with a lot of activities I wanted to do freshman year due to my only parent working when I needed to be picked up/dropped off to and from these clubs. Moreover, our school had no after school activity busses. This led to me not joining any clubs that required an outside of school-time commitments because of my transportation issues.” Should I not include this? Should I ask my counselor to add it in my”

“Hello! I’m writing because I have a big question pertaining to the college application process for big schools such as Vanderbilt, Brown, Wake Forest, etc. I have a fairly healthy academic record for my school: 4.5 Weighted GPA (4.0 UW) including 10+ AP classes with a majority of those being 5s (my ACT is a bit lacking at a 32, but I am currently enrolled in multiple retakes before Vandy ED1). Vanderbilt is my dream school as someone applying in state, but here’s the catch: my extracurriculars S”

“I am applying to competitive schools, and considering all the rest of my applications are great, and I’m confident in them, there is one slightly unique situation. I am an international student, and my school goes as a cambridge curriculum school that offers A Level exams, but I didn’t take any of them. Clearly, the competitive schools could look at this and suppose that I didn’t challenge myself to the highest level of academics offered to me. However, the actual case behind this is that my sch”

“I have a sibling who will be graduate school getting their masters at a public university and my parents are funding it. However, FAFSA/CSS only care about siblings in undergraduate. What do I do? My cost would go from 95k to 65k if that was considered. Is there like a place to report this or what? submitted by /u/Lonely_Dragonfly_363 [link] [comments]”

“For context, I am currently a senior in high school and I know I can't completely re-invent my application, but I can't help but dwell on this. I go to a school in a small, suburban town in Florida. Academically, my school is great, there are a large variety of AP courses to take and I have exercised basically all of my opportunities to take as many of them as I can while still maintaining good grades and a good GPA. However, I feel like the afterschool club culture here is pretty weak,”

“I'm a senior applying to colleges this fall, and my family's sole breadwinner lost their job of 30+ years on October 2nd. I would say that I am a qualified applicant, and I plan to apply to top schools as well as state flagships. I understand that top schools are very generous with financial aid, but I am also wondering if there are any programs or scholarships similar to QuestBridge that I could apply to as a current senior? Some additional context: Very STEM-focused profile w/ 1590 SAT”

“This is a really weird question, but how does being first-gen but not low income impact one’s application. For some context, my parents come from a country where wealth creation doesn’t necessarily require a college degree, so I will be the first person to attend college in my family. I now attend a private school in the US where first gen students are basically inexistent. I was wondering will being first gen but going to a private school generate doubt for AOs who might think I am lying about”

“Hi guys! I’m an international student applying to universities in the US, and I had a question about how financial circumstances are viewed in admissions. I wrote my personal statement a while ago, and it briefly mentions some financial hardships my family experienced earlier in high school. However, I also have a sentence that says, “as my parents’ finances gradually improved,” to make it clear that our situation has since improved. I’m not requesting need-based financial aid from any of the sc”

title basically submitted by /u/Sorry-Concern-3772 [link] [comments]

“I saw on common app that you can include challenging circumstances. Throughout my entire life, one parent has dealt with a gambling addiction/mental health related issues (other parent refuses to divorce unfortunately). Although it didn’t necessarily negatively affect my grades, it was always overarching in my life and led to financial issues where one parent had to cover expenses for the other and periods where the parent with the addiction was not working. I am technically middle-high income b”

“My sister attends a university in the US and my dad lives there with her. I attend a high school in India, and I live here with my mom. We'll move to the US when I start uni (Fall 2027). I just started answering some of the CSS Profile questions for AY 2027-28 and one of them asks about my parents' marital status. I selected "Married or in domestic partnership," because they are married - it's just that they have to be physically separated because my sister and I are both d”

“I’m planning to include how my grandparents living with my family during my junior year affected my responsibilites/time! My grades stayed as A's, but the one thing it hurt me on was having a lot less time to study for my standardized tests. My E+R subscores are great, but my math subscore is horrid. I’m mainly deciding whether it’s better to mention the ACT specifically or keep the explanation broader. Version 1: During my junior year, my grandparents lived with my family for an extended pe”

“Hi! I’m currently a senior in highschool, and i’m going through the application process and am stuck on a certain part of the family section. My brother passed away during ny sophomore year, and i’m not entirely sure whether or not to omit him, as well as what to put for his age (as in his age at death or age if he was still living), as you can’t put text in the age portion. Does anyone have any insight? submitted by /u/Myrah_nmt [link] [comments]”

“Hello! So if you’ve even used the common app you’ll see the thing where it asks if you’ve ever been through specific things such as not having enough to eat or no water or internet. My parents who grew up in one room houses in a third world country are EXTREMELY frugal with money. There have been 5 separate periods in high school (two lasting for more than a month, one time lasting about 6 months) where i did not have access to fresh water, and when I did it would be freezing cold in the Appalac”

“If I’m 20 years old and attend college for fewer than five months as a full-time student during the year, would that prevent my parents from claiming me as a dependent? What if I also earned self-employment income but provided less than half of my own support and lived with my parents for more than six months as a tenant? submitted by /u/Zetra-JV_HX [link] [comments]”

“As the first individual in my family to apply for a four-year school, the process of completing FAFSA has been much tougher than I thought it would be because no one at home has any experience with this process. Even though my parents are willing to help out in any way they can, they think that applying for FAFSA entails borrowing money. While I’m trying to teach them that colleges don’t use FAFSA for loans, I am trying to figure out what they need from me too. My school counselor deals with hun”

“hi everyone! i’m in a weird situation. in applying to the FAP i noticed you have to put both parent financial information down, and there isn’t an area to specify that you live with ONE parent. my parents are divorced and my mom is a low-income single mother. my dad had remarried and has a very different financial situation from us. in looking at FAP i’m getting the impression they also take his income into consideration on being below the threshold? is there anyone i can contact and plead a cas”

“Due to my parents work, I’ve attended each year of highschool at a different country as the one before. These are the ecas I was able to do: -4month 16h a week paid work for a big fintech company dealing with labour disputes, created financial models/investor pitch decks -internship at one of the most important national labour confederations, pitched, planned plus translated meeting with top foreign labour lawyer -2x delegation assistant at the international labour conference (held by specialize”

“How do I effectively write about why my GPA is a little lower than normal? I had medical and school related issues that kind of lowered it. Also, my dad is pretty oppressive, so I wasn't able to do a lot of the extracurriculars I wanted to do. Edit: This isn't for my personal essay submitted by /u/Fig_The_Bird1256 [link] [comments]”

“I am applying for college throguh questbridge and common app. During junior year, I lived alone because my parent had to urgently go overseas to our home country (i guess i should mention im aan immigrant). When my parent left, I was basically freshly 17, and im currently still living alone as a senior (turned 18 over the summer). I might be meeting up with someone from a college readiness nonprofit to help me with my Questbridge application. Should I mention this or would it get me/my parent in”

“I can’t put the details out on here, but I unfortunately have a really difficult personal circumstance that is making me worried about my applications. I don’t have any friends or family who have gotten or applied for their PhD, and don’t know anyone else to ask. Is anyone here willing to offer some guidance that I could message? Or does anyone have any good resources/connections to people who help with PhD applications? I don’t want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for someone to meet”

“I’m FGLI. My parents don’t pressure me to get into a super selective college, but I feel like they want me even if they don’t say it out loud. I feel like i’ll disappoint them if I don’t get into a t20. I go to a competitive highschool and my ego also won’t let me be content with staying in state even though there are a lot of great schools. I know I don’t need to go to a t20 to be successful, but I’m scared. Every time I talk to my parents about college, it ends in an argument. I feel lost and”

“Hi everyone - I had a perfect GPA until a family drama brought it down to 3.6. There was a relative's death and a lot of drama so it kinda affected me. I definitely want to explain this to colleges, but I REALLY don't want to tell my school counselor about this so that he can explain it in the letter of recommendation. What if he tells someone else? What if he doesn't take it seriously? Overall, I don't even know this person, and I don't want to bare my soul like that. Can I”

“Should I put the fact that my parents are separated leading me to be in a completely different state during every summer with no social network, or transportation since my brother and dad both works so I didn’t have much opportunities to get in extracurriculars during the summer? Also, normally my mother is not home often due to work so I’d often have to take care of the house and other responsibilities which leads me having less time for extracurriculars, studying, and when she is home she also”

“alright so this might seem very basic but i promise you its a little more complex so give me 30 seconds of your time and you'll understand it. i'm a FGLI living in new york city and going to a public school. my parents and i live in a 1 bedroom apartment in brooklyn & we rent out a room to supplement our income as we are low income. during my sophomore year, we lost this supplemental income as we did not have a roommate. this was a period of super high stress for my parents and altho”