Eating disorder recovery/PS Help

[cargirl110]

Hello everyone. I am getting ready to write my PS and get things ready for this application cycle. I was anorexic in college, but sought help and am now recovered. I have had advice from one student who suffered from an eating disorder, but I am wondering if there are others who could also give me more advice. M grades went down during my senior year of college (2 C's and 1 D) when my anorexia took such a toll on my health. I don't know how to write in my PS that I am a very strong student academically, with the exception of that one year where I was sick without it sounding like an excuse. I also know I should write that I am stronger from this, how much I learned, that I can handle the rigors of medical school, and so on, but exactly what is the main point I need to get across when it comes to an eating disorder situation?
I know there is still much stigma around eating disorders and those who suffer from them, such as being weak and constantly in relapse, but I truly have recovered and I don't know how to relay that point across. If anyone can give me words of advice, I would appreciate it so much!!!

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[diosa428]

Hello everyone. I am getting ready to write my PS and get things ready for this application cycle. I was anorexic in college, but sought help and am now recovered. I have had advice from one student who suffered from an eating disorder, but I am wondering if there are others who could also give me more advice. M grades went down during my senior year of college (2 C's and 1 D) when my anorexia took such a toll on my health. I don't know how to write in my PS that I am a very strong student academically, with the exception of that one year where I was sick without it sounding like an excuse. I also know I should write that I am stronger from this, how much I learned, that I can handle the rigors of medical school, and so on, but exactly what is the main point I need to get across when it comes to an eating disorder situation?
I know there is still much stigma around eating disorders and those who suffer from them, such as being weak and constantly in relapse, but I truly have recovered and I don't know how to relay that point across. If anyone can give me words of advice, I would appreciate it so much!!!

I would recommend mentioning it to explain your grades, and briefly mentioning how it made you stronger as a person - and spin it as positively as you can. However, the key word is BRIEF. Don't make your whole PS focus on your eating disorder. Remember, the PS is about why you want to be a doctor. While personal struggles definitely shape you as a person, and how you handled them reflects on your personality, you want to show adcoms that there is much more to you than this situation. Get people to read it (esp a premed advisor, if you have one) and get several opinions before submitting it.

 

[samenewme]

I second the above advice. Knock the whole thing out in a short paragraph so that it's something you did, something you learned from, but not who you are. The rest of the essay can be who you are and your passion for medicine.

 

[Begaster]

Do not mention it. The stigma will absolutely bury you.

If your marks are mentioned, use a more mundane excuse - your grandma died, your boyfriend of four years cheated on you, etc. Something that most people can relate to. Do not admit to a serious, psychiatric illness. It will hurt you immensely.

 

[Blesbok]

You could try to spin it off as a positive thing (not that you had it, but that you learned from it). I had epilepsy as a kid and my family has a bunch of other medical problems, so I used that as part of the reason I want to be a doctor.

You could not mention it, but then bring it up when you go for an interview. One of my interviewers straight up asked me why I had a bad grade in a Spanish I class and I explained to her that the teacher was unreasonable and then pointed out that I retook it and got an A the next semester and that it was my only bad grade in college, so it wasn't like I didn't try.

Or you could just completely leave it out and hope that it works out. The big problem with your disorder is that you are 1 year out. These people are not lay people, they see people with habitual disorders on a regular basis and they know that 1 year out is hardly recovered. If you mention it, they very well might skip you over for the next best applicant who has not had a problem like this in the recent past. Their goal is to find people that are going to pass med school and become doctors, if they think for any reason that you are not going to make it, they will just skip you over, they have plenty of other people to choose from.

In the end, it is a risk either way. Good luck.

 

[njbmd]

Pre-med issue and moved to pre-allo. Allopathic medical students read and respond to threads in pre-allo and may follow this one if desired.

 

[diosa428]

You could just leave it out, but I wouldn't make something up. My friend had a similar problem her senior year in college, addressed it in her PS, and was accepted to several very good medical schools (Case and URochester among others). So I wouldn't assume that it will severely hinder your application.

 

[Ooch]

If you address it at all in your PS, which I don't think is a must, I would only mention it as an illness and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES name the illness. It's none of their business, you have no idea how it'll be interpreted, etc, etc. Again, I really don't think you necessarily have to bring this up in your PS at all - you could save it for secondaries/interviews. But if you do bring it up, I would simply say you had a serious illness which severely impacted your academic performance that semester. In terms of your own mental armor, treat it as if you had meningitis. People get sick, do poorly for a semester, recover, and move on - much like you have.

 

[IDrinkWine]

My pre-health adviser told me to avoid mentioning it altogether. Said it raises a major red flag. Plus, it does sound like an excuse, no matter how you spin it. I still managed straight A's when the s*** hit the fan, although I wasn't involved in many extracurricular activities because of it. Even so, I'm glad I didn't address this in my PS or interviews.

But if you feel that it's necessary to talk about that bad spot in your grades, I'd go with what the above poster said and refer to it as an "illness." Unfortunately, eating disorders do carry a huge stigma for many reasons, and a lot of people relapse. I think my recovery was the hardest thing I've ever had to go through in my life, and in a lot of ways I wish I could have talked about that in interviews and essays, but in my opinion, it wasn't worth the risk.

 

[EBI831]

I would not even mention it at all. eating disorders have a factor of stress in them and med school is a very stressful environment and adcoms might start to question whether or not you can cope. i'm not saying you can't cope but i'm saying that it might be like kicking yourself in the face. perhaps say it was depression about what was going on in your life at the time or something.

 

[ar2388]

maybe stress is a factor, but i think it shows a lot of character that someone could go through something so terribly and come out of it, in a fairly short amount of time, and be stronger than before it happened. i think it will depend on the schools to which you apply. maybe im wrong, but i would tend to think that the schools in urban areas (like NYC and Boston) would not seeit as as huge a stigma as a school in Kansas would. If you think that it had a huge effect on you as a person and made you stronger and made you know yourself better, then i would mention it. tie it to medicine somehow. but i do agree that it should be brief. dont make it the highlight of your PS, just a paragraph or so. do you think academic stress had a part to play in you developing it? i really dont think it should hinder your app or make adcoms reject you for that..

 

[Maxprime]

The touchy feelies will tell you to write some wonderful prose about how you overcame adversity. Bottom line - you don't want the people judging your admission to a school to have a knowledge of an illness that may hurt your chances. If you put "I had an illness" then it may come up in an interview. If you have 1 semester of bad grades and 6 semesters of fantastic grades, I think they'll let you slide.

 

[Blesbok]

If you address it at all in your PS, which I don't think is a must, I would only mention it as an illness and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES name the illness. It's none of their business, you have no idea how it'll be interpreted, etc, etc. Again, I really don't think you necessarily have to bring this up in your PS at all - you could save it for secondaries/interviews. But if you do bring it up, I would simply say you had a serious illness which severely impacted your academic performance that semester. In terms of your own mental armor, treat it as if you had meningitis. People get sick, do poorly for a semester, recover, and move on - much like you have.

This is good advice.

 

[Blesbok]

maybe stress is a factor, but i think it shows a lot of character that someone could go through something so terribly and come out of it, in a fairly short amount of time, and be stronger than before it happened. i think it will depend on the schools to which you apply. maybe im wrong, but i would tend to think that the schools in urban areas (like NYC and Boston) would not seeit as as huge a stigma as a school in Kansas would. If you think that it had a huge effect on you as a person and made you stronger and made you know yourself better, then i would mention it. tie it to medicine somehow. but i do agree that it should be brief. dont make it the highlight of your PS, just a paragraph or so. do you think academic stress had a part to play in you developing it? i really dont think it should hinder your app or make adcoms reject you for that..

It has nothing to do with the social stigma. It is the fact that she had a disease that is commonly caused by stress and during that stressful time her academics suffered because of it. I am not saying it is going to happen again, but if it was triggered by the stress of senior year undergrad, it is surely going to be triggered by second year of med school. This is exactly how a school is going to look at it.

I am not trying to be harsh, just honest. I agree with the person that said call it an illness.

 

[cargirl110]

Hey you guys. Thanks for all your responses. I just wanted to clarify that my illness was not brought on by academic stress. The summer before my senior year, my parents lost everything, their home and a lot of their possessions, in a major flood. I guess that triggered it. I appreciate everyone's feedback. Keep it coming!

 

[Doodledog]

I know there is still much stigma around eating disorders and those who suffer from them, such as being weak and constantly in relapse, but I truly have recovered and I don't know how to relay that point across. If anyone can give me words of advice, I would appreciate it so much!!!

Dear Cargirl:

It is entirely up to you whether and how to discuss your eating disorder. If you do, then you must accept that you will need to be prepared to discuss it during an interview. Although it is possible that an individual adcom member, reading about your history, would use it against you in the process, in my experience, this is unlikely to be the case. I would advise against lying or being intentionally vague about your illness. Simply naming it will not exclude you from consideration in my experience. I would not use it against you any more than I have used the same or similar histories against many other applicants in the past.

Facing and recovering from illnesses, including eating disorders, depression and the like are a common factor in many medical school applications. You do not need to explain in any detail about your recovery or care. I would generally agree with keeping the description short and to the point. Focus on who you are, not the disease or the recovery. Since it occurred in your senior year, presumably you have done things since then related to your career goals. These are worth focusing on in your essays.

Good luck.

 

[asmith1121]

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[Blesbok]

Hey you guys. Thanks for all your responses. I just wanted to clarify that my illness was not brought on by academic stress. The summer before my senior year, my parents lost everything, their home and a lot of their possessions, in a major flood. I guess that triggered it. I appreciate everyone's feedback. Keep it coming!

Now maybe it is just me, but don't you think saying that would be a MUCH better way of explaining your slump in academic performance?

 

[cargirl110]

Actually, good point. Thank you for the insight.

 

[cardboardearrin]

I suffered from major depressive disorder for years, and I opted not to mention a word of it in my application.
Then, at an interview, because I was so nervous and spewing verbal diarrhea, I blurted it out and talked about it shaping me.
I thought I was screwed, but she didn't even bat an eyelash, and I was accepted a week later.
Not really all that relevant, but just an anecdote.

 

[Blesbok]

I suffered from major depressive disorder for years, and I opted not to mention a word of it in my application.
Then, at an interview, because I was so nervous and spewing verbal diarrhea, I blurted it out and talked about it shaping me.
I thought I was screwed, but she didn't even bat an eyelash, and I was accepted a week later.
Not really all that relevant, but just an anecdote.

I still say go with the flood thing. Don't use it as an excuse, but play it off as a growing experience (with an excuse on the side). It may not be the real reason, but it is the reason behind the reason. Everyone does a little bit of "shaping" for the application.

 

[cardboardearrin]

I still say go with the flood thing. Don't use it as an excuse, but play it off as a growing experience (with an excuse on the side). It may not be the real reason, but it is the reason behind the reason. Everyone does a little bit of "shaping" for the application.

I would tend to agree, despite my experience.