The following essay was written by an applicant who was admitted to top US master’s programs in mental health counseling. Variations of this personal statement got accepted at Boston University, Harvard, and Yale.

This personal statement is intended to provide an example of a successful essay for a top counseling and psychology program in specializing in mental health.

Nietzsche’s quote, “that which doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger,” captures my life’s journey. Lying in a hospital bed as a sixteen-year-old cancer patient, I resigned to accepting my inevitabile death. Yet, as the annihilating poison from chemotherapy went through my veins and into every fiber of my living body, I experienced an unfamiliar pain. As I lay there, I contemplated questions about life, death, God, souls, love, and pain. My parents and siblings would try to provide comfort. Sometimes it worked. At other times, I would wonder if this is all my life would be. Where the title of my life story could have been “Endless Possibilities,” would this story now be just a few pages long, ending with an unfinished sentence? And then I would freeze into a crippling stupor for hours.

Cancer treatment affects one at multiple levels: it starts by attacking one’s body, then impacts one’s mind, and eventually, it grates at one’s soul. Physically I felt like my entire body was rotting away. My hair falling out seemed like a cruel joke for a beautiful teenage girl. Emotionally and spiritually, my cancer brought me face to face with the overwhelming concept of death. None of this made sense to me, no matter how hard anyone tried to convince me otherwise.

After reaching my lowest, my mind quieted down. I started seeing some things very differently. It’s thought that mythical figures like Jacob, Oedipus, and even Jesus, were said to walk with a limp. This disillusionment of their physical body opened their souls and uncovered their ability to feel. In flashes of conscious awareness, I saw concern when my sister silently grieved with me. My heartfelt, unburdened with my father’s tears. Affection touched my broken soul with a doctor looking into my eyes and asking how I was. I felt a life force with my mother feeding me bland, tasteless food. Then, this intense gratitude came to me that if I were to live, I wanted to heal other people’s pain. In the following months, my body, mind, and soul strengthened, and I decided to study psychology and do social work, which I started right after high-school.

When I was twenty years old, my older brother was diagnosed with clinical depression. I could understand the pain he was going through, and I tried helping him. I used to counsel him to the best of my ability. I supported him in fighting his overpowering daemons, reinforcing his doctor’s and therapist’s work. But he lost his will to live two years later and ended his life. His loss shattered me. 

As I pieced together my life after his loss, I enrolled in a Master’s program in Anthropology. I wanted to study different people, religions, and cultures. I knew that I had a lot of empathy for people, and I tried to understand issues of diversity and disability academically. So, during my Master’s, I worked with sex workers, adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, transvestites, and transgender individuals to understand how these individuals from the most marginalized segments of our society can cope with a pain that no one would want even to understand.

During my Master’s program, I joined American Counseling Works (ACW) to develop my skillset to become a better helper. ACW is a training institute and sanctuary for healing mental health issues. It was here that I unreservedly spoke about all the pain that had taken up residence inside me. The beautiful journey of being in therapy helped me find peace in accepting all parts of me. I heard my voice answering questions about life, death, God, souls, love, and pain. I experienced what the field of psychology calls “post-traumatic growth” and what my favorite teacher Michael Soth calls “becoming a wounded healer.”

Given my superior performance at ACW, I was one of the first students in my class to be allowed to work with clients. As a result, I was given the additional responsibility of coordinating and managing the families of the in-patient clients. In the past few months of working, I have been genuinely fulfilled by taking up a career in counseling and therapy. Through this, I can heal with compassion and counseling skills.