Does this sound like an excuse?

[OnlyIfICouldTurnBackTime]

On the background section of ADEA AADSAS, they ask:

"Has your education ever been interrupted or affected adversely for reasons other than deficiencies in conduct or academic performance?"

I indeed suffered from serious illness over two months. I wrote:

"During the Fall 2014 semester, I suffered from ineffably excruciating headache and rashes over two months, which undeniably affected my academic potential. Doctors at (censored) could not diagnose the exact cause. They thus ran blood test on me, and found foreign proteins free-floating most likely due to unknown bacterial infection (I hypothesize that the bacteria were highly localized within tissues, but were releasing toxic byproducts into the bloodstream). They prescribed Amoxillin 500mg antibiotics, and the pain was alleviated over the few weeks. The following year, I repeated a course I did poorly on and achieved A-."

Does this sound like an excuse? I don't know how else to elaborate the old situation. I was indeed extremely sick for reason I do not seem to recognize. Any suggestions?

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[Incis0r]

1. Sorry you went through this
2. This is a good explanation

 

[JLT223]

It's a medical issue, far from an excuse.

 

[hellofuturedentists]

I'm not sure you need to go into that much detail. My impression about that section was that you were supposed to just write one or two sentences that basically say "I had a medical issue and took time off". I could be wrong though. Regardless, that's an explanation and not an excuse and that's exactly the purpose of that section of the application.

 

[DSlotted]

On the background section of ADEA AADSAS, they ask:

"Has your education ever been interrupted or affected adversely for reasons other than deficiencies in conduct or academic performance?"

I indeed suffered from serious illness over two months. I wrote:

"During the Fall 2014 semester, I suffered from ineffably excruciating headache and rashes over two months, which undeniably affected my academic potential. Doctors at (censored) could not diagnose the exact cause. They thus ran blood test on me, and found foreign proteins free-floating most likely due to unknown bacterial infection (I hypothesize that the bacteria were highly localized within tissues, but were releasing toxic byproducts into the bloodstream). They prescribed Amoxillin 500mg antibiotics, and the pain was alleviated over the few weeks. The following year, I repeated a course I did poorly on and achieved A-."

Does this sound like an excuse? I don't know how else to elaborate the old situation. I was indeed extremely sick for reason I do not seem to recognize. Any suggestions?

Remove the bolded part with emphasis on the underlined

 

[aj30]

I'm not sure you need to go into that much detail. My impression about that section was that you were supposed to just write one or two sentences that basically say "I had a medical issue and took time off". I could be wrong though. Regardless, that's an explanation and not an excuse and that's exactly the purpose of that section of the application.

I think this is true. No need to mention any of the technical details, sounds like overcompensation to me. Just mention that after running tests you were diagnosed by Doctor X with an unknown bactrial infection and that it took some time to recover.

And it definitely doesn't sound like an excuse but like a legit reason.

 

[BeaverLover]

I definitely agree with aj and hello. Just say it was a medical condition and cut out the stuff after second sentence

 

[doc toothache]

You could save a lot of ps space by sending a copy of your medical records instead.

 

[schmoob]

Yeah, that's a lot of unnecessary detail and fluff. You got sick, you got better, retook the course and did well in it. Definitely take out the part where you hypothesized what it was, you're not a doctor yet so you wouldn't want it to look like a diagnosis, especially after saying other physicians couldn't figure it out. It's not necessary.
Good luck!