Notes

I'm a former admissions reader at UChicago and Berkeley, so I'll speak from my experience: You can absolutely write about your depression and anxiety. Berkeley (at least when I evaluated apps in 2017-2018) has a series of check boxes by which they evaluate an applicant's candidacy. One check box is "persistence in the face of challenges".

I've had students talk about depression, anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders, mental illness in their family, one even wrote about his suicide attempt, and all those kids were admitted to UCs. But if you DO talk about the issue, try to discuss how you've worked through the issue and learned something from the experience (how to cope, how to learn in the face of adversity, the value of family/friends, etc.). The strongest challenge essays, in my experience as both a former admissions reader and current independent counselor, show the candidate as a STRONGER applicant because of their adversity.