Tragedy Tale for personal statement?

[SmurfHaribos]

My DD is in Year 12. I was talking to a friend whose children have gone to university. She was saying it’s very important to include a Tragedy Tale in your personal statement eg a diagnosis of something, an experience of prejudice, coming from a difficult/different background etc etc. You then have to say how you overcame it/live with it and how it has made you more resilient and determined etc etc.
As it happens my DD has 2 tragedy tales she could include but she really doesn’t want to as she feels it’s private and she is still coming to terms with a significant medical diagnosis.
How important is a Tragedy Tale in a personal statement? Does everyone include one? Is she shooting herself in the foot if she doesn’t include them?
Thanks in advance.

The UCAS refs have changed at school level; mitigating circumstances, disadvantage etc are now a section that the school has to fill in. If the school knows of the tragedy tales, then they should be included in that section.
Seems like everybody must have at least one for the application process to have changed like this. I’d therefore stress the resilience if your DD is going to go forward with it in her own PS; don’t underestimate how many disadvantages are out there.

Dd had to give up her main sport due to a serious accident. While recovering she had counselling and also found another sport she could do that she loves. She's mentioning this in her PS as she now wants to study sports science or sports psychology. It's quite relevant though.

I'm actually quite touched that so many PPs have such faith in their schools mentioning chronic medical conditions on a pupil's reference – DD2's school may not even have been aware she had one! She managed it herself and was lucky enough never to need paramedic/ambulance assistance. She preferred to keep it private, I doubt she was alone in this, OP says her DD is the same.

My personal experience with my DCs is that schools don't have a scooby and often try to avoid any responsibility for making reasonable adjustments right up to the point where you have to start talking about disability discrimination.

Right up to talking about disability discrimination? Surely you mean taking them to tribunal…

I think this person is confusing US applications with U.K. US applications are far less subject-specific as they don't choose the major until later. DD's friends were very blatant that they did exaggerate certain 'issues' - eg. anything remotely about overcoming cultural issues or any kind of adversity - 'speak your truth,' 'tell your story' etc etc etc - and if you can possibly be non-binary all the better. Honestly, the stuff they wrote was like X-Factor x 100 and they all got places. Over here, it would come across as ridiculous.

The overriding focus should be on your subject, what you've read, what's made you want to study more. I would say some personal reflection can be worthwhile -so not "tragedy" (ugh) but "learning". So DS was the cohort which lost its GCSEs - leaving him with very poor CAGs as a result of doing no work for his mocks. He wrote about how this had taught him not to take education for granted. Obviously it could be unrelated but he got 5 RG and equivalent offers despite having GCSEs which are, in the context of most others being effectively upgraded, pretty terrible. So it seems likely the personal statement played a part.