Avoiding the College Application “Trauma Dump”

This year, a surprising preponderance of students have asked me a certain question, each using the same phrasing: should they attempt to “trauma dump” in their application essays?

I don’t know exactly what prompted these questions, though I suspect that it may be a meme worming its way through #collegeapplication social media. We have, of course, heard for many years that colleges are interested in hardships that applicants may have faced, and stories of hardships — call them traumas, if you will — make for compelling reading. Every novel you’ve ever read involved some sort of hardship.

But do they make for compelling essays? And do colleges really want to know about them?

A new answer to this question lies in a change to the Common Application.

Since 2020, the Common App has included an optional writing section called “community disruptions” in which it asks, “community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts… this space is yours to describe those impacts.” Colleges wanted to know how students coped with the pandemic, at least on the extremes. They didn’t want to hear about Zoomschool or canceled athletic seasons, but they were willing to consider the consequences of deaths in the familiar or, conversely, of building fusion reactors in the backyard.

As well, though they didn’t say this, they did not want to wade through pandemic-related personal statements. So, the “pandemic essay” gave applicants an outlet to acknowledge their pandemic experiences without writing what surely would have been tedious personal essays.

Fortunately, time, and Moderna, heal many wounds. The pandemic is a distant memory, and now so is the pandemic section of the Common App.

Taking its place is the new “Challenges and Circumstances” section. Its prompt reads, “Would you like to share any details about challenges or other circumstances you’ve experienced?” and it lists types of topics that students might write about. They include community unrest, discrimination, family obligations, health, and natural disasters, among others.

There’s a lot to like about this prompt. I applaud the Common App, which is often coy or confusing, for fully explaining what they’re looking for. For students determined to shovel trauma, this prompt will give them pause. Some applicants will use the prompt thoughtfully — and keep trauma stories out of their other essays. Others will, hopefully, realize that, maybe, they should steer clear of trauma entirely. For those applicants who don’t get the hint, I suspect that college readers will be savvy enough to identify the essays that are disingenuous, melodramatic, or outright fabrications.

For students who have genuinely been impeded by forces beyond their control, the prompt invites thoughtful, but not excessive, discussion.

In both cases, the Challenges and Circumstances essay serves an important conceptual function: by placing hardship in a well-defined space, it frees up applicants to write about literally anything else in their personal essays. In doing so, they have the security of knowing that colleges understand a (relatively) full picture of them, but they do not need to define themselves by their hardships. They can put other experiences and virtues front-and-center.

I also hope that the prompt will give students pause, especially those, like my students, who have been influenced by “trauma-dump” rumors. By facing the question, they can ask themselves if they have faced true challenges. I suspect that the answer, in many cases, will be no. Homework, chemistry labs, soccer practice, and breakups are not challenges. Unpleasant as they may be sometimes, they are part of growing up. With this new prompt, students who live comfortable lives can then stop feeling bad about not feeling bad and can develop other essay topics that will surely serve them well.

The flippancy of the phrase speaks for itself. A “trauma dump” is an affectation — an insincere attempt at creating drama or eliciting sympathy. Whatever they’re saying on TikTok, no one should have to explain how unethical and ineffective that approach is.

Most students at most colleges have lived comfortable lives. Students who are comfortable should use the comfort to their advantage, not to seek trauma, but to seek virtue. A financially stable student from a stable family can become educated, compassionate, savvy, mature, confident, thoughtful, energetic, empathetic, talented, curious, humorous, and ambitious. These goals are available, in all their infinite combinations, to everyone who seeks them. And, incidentally, they make fantastic foundations for effective application essays.

Let’s think about real hardship. I have worked with orphans, cancer survivors, children of alcoholics, refugees who fled war, and families whose houses burned down in wildfires. Those are hardships. Those people can lay claim to trauma. The vast majority of us — whatever skirmishes we may have fought with parents, friends, and ourselves — have not.

Whatever inconveniences and stresses a high school student may face, anyone who is in a position to apply to a highly selective college in 2025 is likely to rank among the most fortunate people who have ever lived. Compared with any random human from any place in any other era (philosopher John Rawls called this the “veil of ignorance”), even the most stressed-out high school striver comes out pretty well. I think most of us would gladly take a report card of straight F-minuses rather than face the sort of poverty, hunger, disease, warfare, and subjugation that our forebearers did (and that too many people around the world still do).

If we are dumping anything, it should be gratitude. And, if there is any trauma that ought to weigh upon us, it is that most of us are so powerless to help the countless people who are less fortunate than we are.