What Reviewers Look For in the Loyola Clinical Psychology Optional Essay
This rubric looks at whether your chosen challenge is clear, what it changed in your life if you discuss an effect, and how you navigated it if you choose to describe your response. It also checks that the essay stays focused, uses plain language, and answers the current application question without requiring private details, a psychology connection, or a fully resolved ending.
Loyola Clinical Psychology Optional Essay review
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What We Check
Whether the chosen circumstance is understandable on its own terms: the situation, the writer's relationship to it and the conditions that made it an obstacle.
Mistakes We Flag
- Naming a hardship without explaining the obstacle
- A background category or hardship label alone does not show the conditions that made the situation difficult for you.
- Turning the essay into a life history
- Unrelated events or a long chronology can distract from the one circumstance you chose to explain.
- Using broad impact labels
- Words such as “formative” or “life-changing” do not show what actually changed in your opportunities, obligations, choices, time, relationships, or other parts of life.
- Claiming triumph without showing what changed
- Saying you overcame something or became stronger is less clear than describing an action, support, adjustment, changed understanding, or external change that helped you navigate it.
- Forcing a happy ending or lone-hero account
- An obstacle may still be ongoing, and support from other people or institutions can be part of an honest account.
How this rubric reads your essay
- Built from published reader guidance — the sources are listed below.
- Scored per section against defined criteria, not general impressions.
- Calibrated for consistent scoring, so a better draft shows up in the score.
References
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to submit this essay?
No. It is optional, and applicants without a relevant experience or who prefer privacy may omit it.
Do I need to disclose a diagnosis, identity, family details, or financial information?
No. You do not need to provide a diagnosis, identity label, family name, exact income, third-party private information, or fuller personal disclosure.
Do I need to explain how the challenge led me to psychology or a PhD?
No. This essay does not require an academic outcome, psychology connection, graduate-degree motivation, career change, faculty fit, or service plans.
Do I need to show that I fully overcame the challenge?
No. An ongoing constraint, partial outcome, support from others, changed understanding, or an external change can provide a complete account. No length limit is assumed unless the current application question supplies one.
Read the application writing guide
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