Undergraduate / 'Dear Mankato Admissions Board' - Personal statement to Mankato University [3]

This is a personal statement to help my college understand why my grade don't reflect me. If anyone has some nice feedback and positive advice along with a little add ins it would be greatly appreciated!![/b]

[b]Dear Mankato Admissions Board,
Black words on a matte white paper can't make you understand the struggles someone like me has to go through on a day to day basis. ADHD, four big words that nobody really can define. No doctor, therapist or parent can tell you the traitorous battles life deals out growing up in high school with a "minor" learning impairment.

All throughout my life I was told repeatedly by multiple teachers, "She has potential, she just doesn't apply herself", or "and she's often distracted and talks way too much". I was a child; I thought that was a norm for kids my age. As I grew older school got harder. I was taken out of the advanced math and reading classes I was in during elementary school, and then placed into the standard academic leveled classes. I didn't really know why, nobody ever told me what I was doing wrong; well that is, until the day of the intervention. We were sitting in a beige, poorly lit room at 7:30 A.M. on a rainy Monday morning. All placed around a circular table were my parents, followed by my 8th grade teachers along with my principal, Mrs. Kelly. I didn't know what was going on, my mind was racing. The discussions begun and their muttered voices began to surround me. They thought that this confrontation of telling me I have ADHD would help me, it didn't. It made me feel a combination of emotions: Upset, confused, worried, and most of all embarrassed.

"What would my friends think?" is the question that consistently pondered against the walls of my brain. I've spent all this time trying so hard to be the same as everyone else to have this set me back. I had begun to feel myself separating into two different people; Public mode and my At-Home mode. I had to try to tame this demon trying to consume my mind. I had to continually tell myself to focus, until I realized this is out of my control. I had informed my mother and we had begun seeing a psychiatrist my freshman year. We toyed around with countless medications four extended periods of time. Some worked very well while others didn't last longer than a few weeks. In this minute experimentation of pills, we finally started noticing the academic strides I had begun to make. My grades had started to improve, along with my personal understanding of what ADHD does. I had face a lot of hard times, and challenging courses early on in high school, it wasn't until my sophomore year I really became dedicated. Everyone has that one teacher that makes you realize everything in life that you're doing wrong; for me, that was Mr. Salzer. He had a different style of teaching that really spoke to me. You could see in every word he spoke and the fury in his eyes, he really loves doing what he does. He made me want to do better, I felt like in my paper and homework if I could impress him I was capable of a lot more than I could think. The next year, junior year, I had signed up for sociology with his as my teacher. That class was the class I had my own kind of "epiphany". This is what I want to do. I spent exceeding hours studying and critiquing every last touch to each paper and project. By the end of the trimester, I realized I didn't have to try to focus in this class because it was engaging to me. After I had this realization, I showed myself what I was capable of doing. I focused on my schoolwork better than I ever had. I finally started to forget all about being different; wisdom was my distraction of all the complications of this damn disorder. Learning about it in such a delayed time in my life really impacted my grades. Outside of school people have situations that follow them back into the classroom; the struggle of figuring out how I need to cope with a learning disorder was mine. My grades won't tell you who I am, but I easily can. I may be not the brightest person out of my class, or exceeding extracurricular qualities; but I'm headstrong, and have determination to attend MSU and complete schooling in flying colors. A new town and new people is exactly what I need. The time to focus on myself and my studies is now, and I want to everything I can to show you that you won't regret accepting my application. The strength and positivity I have to keep it all together will help me not just in schooling, but in life. I accepted the fact that I'll never be like the other kids, but being different is okay. The path less traveled on leads to more succession, and that's exactly what I'm ready and willing to prove to you. I would do anything to gain acceptance, it's been a dream of mine since my eldest sister graduated in the class of 2008. I have no interest in any other colleges, I need Mankato and Mankato needs me.

I hope you consider me as an applicable participant in the appeals process, Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Mallory M. Sackey