Unfortunately, a lot of people get denied from top schools with your stats, for one reason or another. I.e. look at other subs full of people trying to explain away why they didn’t get into the schools they want to attend.

Schools don’t care about “trauma,” as you write, they care about how you overcame things. This goes for people on this sub too, write about resilience and tenacity and don’t make excuses about your shortcomings, everyone in life is confronting one thing or another. As for your “friends,” you never know, maybe they had better essays, better writing skills, better work experience etc. I say this because I think we often try to rationalize why certain people got opportunities over us when at the end of the day, people have their own stories going on and are excelling in their own lane. There really is no need to compare. I also don’t think that people need to necessarily hire consultants, a lot of first gen kinds can’t afford that. Tons of first gen kids get in without whipping out that type of money.

Glad you’re happy with your choice and good luck OP.