How to Write About ADHD or a Learning Difference in A College Essay

The rough draft that I usually receive from an uncoached student is well crafted but the wrong type of essay. Five paragraphs. Strong introduction paragraph with a clear thesis statement, three body paragraphs, a conclusion that puts it all together. Something along the lines of "my ADHD taught me perseverance."

The student didn't do anything wrong. That five-paragraph shape is the only structure school ever gave them for writing about something. They used the tool they had.

The subject isn't the problem

Last cycle, 23% of Common App applicants chose the prompt about facing a challenge or setback. Second most-used of the seven, behind "topic of your choice."

So a student with a diagnosis who writes the obvious version of their story is writing the most common essay in the pile.

I’m not saying students should avoid the subject. No topic is off the table. 

I’m saying that the people that read these essays are looking for something that’s different and engaging. Also, the application isn't a contest over whose life has been hardest. 

Is anything actually happening?

When I read a draft, I want to know what an event or action did to the writer and to the world around them.

A student writes about getting through school with an injury. I finish it and still don't know what the surgery did teach them to persevere. Unfortunately, that's just another broken leg, arm, foot, etc. Something significant happened, but that isn't a story. 

If there's something real in the draft, we dig and build from there. If it's flat, we treat it as the first round of brainstorming. Still ahead of a blank page.

Don’t overlook the details

The student’s small adaptations they made on their own are usually where the story is. 

Something as small as a teenage who learned to remember to double-knot her shoes before walking to school  is carrying a whole history in one detail. Running late. Tripping. Being the one who stopped to retie. It says more about how she moves through a day than a paragraph about perseverance ever could.  Connect these details to a feeling, idea, or event that changed them, and you might have a story. 

I don't always know what a detail like that connects to when a student says it. We get it on the page and follow it.

Make it relatable

We often stop seeing what we look at every day. Writing puts it back in front of us.

My MFA is in screenwriting. A screenplay can't tell you what a character is thinking. There's no line for "she felt anxious." The camera only sees what's in the room, so you learn to find the object or the gesture that carries it. 

There's a common saying in the screenwriting world: to keep viewers engaged, you have to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. The same is true for a college essay!

For the personal statement, it runs both directions.

Familiar made strange. The shoelace. The route through the hallway. The specific setup your student needs before they can start homework. They assume it's too boring to mention, which is why nobody else has written it.

Strange made familiar. Many people have no idea what it's like when the page won't hold still, or when you've read the same paragraph four times and kept none of it. Your student can put a reader inside that.

Getting the details out

No student volunteers the shoelace thing. You have to ask. That’s why much of a first session with me is conversation, but these conversations can happen anytime.

Watch for the shift, not the subject. You're not listening for a particular emotion. You're listening for the moment they speed up, they get specific without being asked, they stop giving you the version they think you want. Funny stories often do it. So does something they care about and assume you'll find boring.

The topic matters less than the change in how they're talking about it.

Ask about the senses. When they mention a moment, ask what they remember about it. What it sounded like. What it smelled like. Sensory memory is where specifics are stored, and specific beats abstract every time.

Make it a game if it stalls. A checklist, a timer, twenty questions. Teenagers asked to describe their own lives tend to freeze. Lowering the stakes works better than pushing. 

Take notes while they talk. I type while students talk. It takes the pressure off, and at the end they can see how much they already had. A student who thinks they have nothing to say is usually wrong, and the fastest way to show them is a page of their own words.

What you remember may not be what mattered

Parents are a good icebreaker here. You remember events your kid has forgotten, and stories they've never told anyone.

But your memory of their childhood is a starting point, not a map.

The year you think was the hard year may not be the one. What shaped a student is often something quiet — something they never mentioned and carried alone. Those don't show up in family photos.

So, bring up the funny story or ask a question. Then listen for what they bring up instead.

When it goes somewhere heavy

Sometimes this opens a door nobody was aiming for. A bad year. A bad school. Something at home.

Respond the way you, as a parent, usually respond. With empathy, before anything about the essay.

If you think it belongs in the essay, say so. Tell them it's powerful. Ask if they want to talk about it. Offer to take notes while they do.

Where to start

Pick one story you both remember. Ask what it sounded like. Write down what they say and don't correct any of it.

That's the whole exercise.

Is your student stuck? I coach the personal statement, and I work with ADHD and multilingual students the rest of the year too. Book a free consultation and I'll tell you whether I'm the right fit.