Should I tell about depression during interview for Visa F1

[ptaqll 0]

I'm in Vietnam. During my first two years in university here I have tried to apply for a sholarship to study abroad in US. However, not only I didn't qualify for any scholarship, my performance in uni also hurt serverely. 
 

At first, it was just me spending too many times on studying Toefl and SAT tests, which I have never learned nor even know before graduating from high school. The university's scores went a bit low but I didn't mind. I thought that I will probably be accepted by a US school soon, and all I need to do in my uni back then was just to acquire knowledge. I'm not the type to mind about scores and so on.

 

Anyway, the first year none of the uni that I applied to accepted me, because I was aiming too high I think. Then came the announcement from my former's uni that I will be dropped to "normal" class due to my performance. I was not prepared for this, and it was quite a bit shock to me. I was studying in "advanced" class because I scored high during entrance exam, and during times in my high school I was doing "good", you know what I mean. To top it off, my gf just broken up with me, and my family was having trouble that I had to deal with too. The relationship between my elder brother and mom was stranded heavily ever since he was in love with another girl, who is his wife now. They were and still are living in my mom's house, and partially it was my fault since I "helped" him to date her. 

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What I want to say is, a lot of bad things kinda happened at the same time. I was mostly dissapointed that I didn't qualify for any scholarship, but luckily I managed to ask the school's office to let me stay in the "advanced" class for one more semester. It was a mistake, though. As the second year I applied for scholarship in US again, failed again, and my performance was not better, so I dropped from "advanced" class. I was then in extremely depression. My scores went bad heavily, I even dropped from many classes, and so on.

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Anyway, after sometimes I finally beat myself up and start to apply to study abroad again. I dropped out from my former uni, and haven't study in any more uni since then because I don't want to make the same mistake twice. I was accepted, finally, but I failed during visa interview, which I think was because when they asked about my low performance in the past, despite during high school I was doing extremely well, I couldn't explain clearly. I simply told them that I had to focus in English, and that the courses were not interest to me (which are both the truth, btw, but none of them touch the core).

My next interview would be my 6th try. I have applied and was accepted to a better school, and I decided that this time would be my last attempt; if I failed again I will go back to study uni in my country. However, I'm worry that the samething would happen again, but I don't know how to tell the interviewer about my depression without making the answer long. I know that I should answer them as short as possible. What should I do in this case? Should I tell them all and hope they will listen to my story? Will it affect my chance for visa? Any advise would be helpful. Thanks alot for reading. And sorry for my bad english.

[Roel 7,192]

They might ask you to provide medical paperwork, like proofs that you went to he therapist and worked on treating your depression. 

 

But I don't think that f1 visa has medical exams? Since they ask about this stuff during actual exam. 

 

I dont think they care about this embassy interview for non immigrant visa? 

 

Someone correct me. 

[ptaqll 0]

Yeah. They don't care about medical exam, nor I did went through any though. I didn't even know what I experienced was depression until I get over it through many helps. My matter is I don't know how else I can explain to them about my bad performance in the past, despite I did extremely well during high school (national awards and etc, just want to clarify things). And the question kept being asked again and again through many interviews, yet never had the interviewers feel satisfied with my answer, so I believed it was the problem. Even if it's not, I think knowing how to better answer this question will be pretty useful for my next interview.

[Coco8 1,042]

You can say that you had some personal problems that prevented you to focus as much as you wanted on your studies. That now that is behind you are you are excited about furthering your education.

 

Just some advice. You need to think and write a bit more clearly. Your writing was too long and the consulate does not care about so many specifics. Everyone has personal problems and people deal differently with them. As @Roel said, saying depression would mean you had to go through treatment, you cannot mention that lightly. Maybe you have had treatment, but if you didn't and just self-diagnosed depression, that is a problem for you personally.

 

Another issue is that high school is not that important. I have seen a lot of excellent students in high school do poorly in college and a lot of excellent college students do poorly in PhD programs. And I've seen plenty of students that went to really bad schools  or that did poorly in school do very very well in college. 

 

University is more about sitting down and studying, reading, doing homework. It seems as if a study group would be good for you too. You seem to study alone and maybe that is why you go so down. Studying with other people helps and you improve much more than on your own. Grades don't really matter, what matters is whether you are understanding the material. You should also ask about why you got something wrong and try to figure out what the correct answer was. 

 

 

 

[ptaqll 0]

Tks Coco,
Yeah some also told me to tell them that I had "personal problems" and so on like you said. Just been wondering if that was enough, but I'm assure now. I did study in many groups before things went down though. We don't have many "homeworks" during first year btw, just "assignments" posting online which were not hard.

[Boiler 45,525]

With 5 refusals I doubt it is that relevant.