Clinical PhD application- one bad semester failing multiple classes

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deleted563975

Applying for clinical PhD programs this go around and have one glaring concern. For context, i finished with a 3.4 GPA, 1350GRE's, 2 publications, 6 abstracts, considerable research experience and 3 glowing letters.

My third semester as an undergrad, now 6 years ago I ended up failing 4/5 classes. If you're interested in how such a thing happens, here's the long story short- I moved away from home and my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I ended up traveling home quite a bit as we did not know how much time he had left and missed a fair amount of class due to doctor's appointments. I was unable to withdraw from the university as it was past the allowable time. It was a pretty dark time in my life, just looking at the transcript I am filled with shame. I ended up taking a year off as I was afraid of the cancer returning and being in the same situation.

My questions are:
1) How big of a red flag is this?
2) Should I mention this in my personal statement? Or just be prepared to explain it during an interview.

Thank you for your time.

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This is a VERY similar situation to what I had. Swap brother for father and 1st semester for 3rd, and we have a surprisingly similar story, at least on the surface. My ultimate GPA was 3.5x, and my GREs were the same. No publications. I didn't mention the poor semester in my personal statement, and I got 8/12 interviews. On those interviews, I sometimes asked my POI if they had any questions about my application, or if there was anything that might be helpful to explain (I forget exactly how I phrased it). One POI brought my bad semester up, I explained with disclosure (as much as you have given here), and I was accepted to work with that POI, at a top-tier program. I went elsewhere, but I didn't find that this one semester was a detriment to me at all (but who knows at those 4 places I didn't get interviews?). It's worth noting that two of my bad grades were psychology courses! Your POIs will likely see that your blip is just that: a blip. They'll have a hunch that something must have been going on. Got me, the stark contrast between my blip and my other grades likely helped, as did my own recognition that I should have reached out to someone at the university for help. I spoke of it as a learning experience ("I was a young student and didn't think to ask for help, but I know now that it was available and that if I had asked for it, I would have had a better introduction to college, yadda yadda. Even though I did poorly in two psychology courses I knew that I loved the material and wasn't about to let those low grades stop me, yadda yadda").
 
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This is a VERY similar situation to what I had. Swap brother for father and 1st semester for 3rd, and we have a surprisingly similar story, at least on the surface. My ultimate GPA was 3.5x, and my GREs were the same. No publications. I didn't mention the poor semester in my personal statement, and I got 8/12 interviews. On those interviews, I sometimes asked my POI if they had any questions about my application, or if there was anything that might be helpful to explain (I forget exactly how I phrased it). One POI brought my bad semester up, I explained with disclosure (as much as you have given here), and I was accepted to work with that POI, at a top-tier program. I went elsewhere, but I didn't find that this one semester was a detriment to me at all (but who knows at those 4 places I didn't get interviews?). It's worth noting that two of my bad grades were psychology courses! Your POIs will likely see that your blip is just that: a blip. They'll have a hunch that something must have been going on. Got me, the stark contrast between my blip and my other grades likely helped, as did my own recognition that I should have reached out to someone at the university for help. I spoke of it as a learning experience ("I was a young student and didn't think to ask for help, but I know now that it was available and that if I had asked for it, I would have had a better introduction to college, yadda yadda. Even though I did poorly in two psychology courses I knew that I loved the material and wasn't about to let those low grades stop me, yadda yadda").

Thanks for sharing, that's really encouraging to hear! It's nice to know others have been in a similar situation - and it didn't hinder their progress. I feel really comfortable with the rest of my application otherwise, perhaps I'm making this into a bigger deal than it is.
 
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It does sound like you have a strong application otherwise. I think you are wise to be thinking about it. I'd be curious to hear if others have approached this in a different way (e.g., by including it in the SOP).
 
Similar story here; father with cancer, 8 hours from home, pretty terrible grades for my sophomore year. I graduated by the skin of my teeth, and chose to get an Experimental MA before applying to doctoral programs. My undergrad grades came up explicitly in 4 of my interviews, and I was accepted into 3 of those. I included it in my SOP and talked at length about what I learned from the experience and how I will use it to inform my future professional practice. It is our specialty to help others get back up when they fall; demonstrating that insight regarding ourselves can be represented as a strength if you have some consistently great subsequent work to back it up. Good luck!
 
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