Extracurricular Activities related to being gay or mental illness.

[tryp]

I am doing my applications and a lot of my extracurriculars have to do with mental illness advocacy and/or LGBT advocacy. If I don't feature them in my application, I'll be losing some of my major extracurrics, but I'm worried about the discrimination.

I don't really know what to do in order to present myself in the best way possible.

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[Slowpoke]

Just as an aside, I originally thought from the title of this topic that you were asking if being gay could be used as an EC and I couldn't help but laugh out loud in the library.

I can't imagine why you would be discriminated based on your sexual orientation (assuming your interview is not an old school conservative fellow). But what other choice do you have then to go with what you got? I wouldn't want to attend a school that wasn't understanding of individuals with different life perspectives anyhow.

Be confident in who you are. If they judge you solely on this fact, and it is apparent maybe bring it up with one of the higher-ups.

 

[tryp]

Yeah, I'm not SOOOOO worried about the gay thing, but the mental illness part has me tripping out.

 

[Asyouwereatrio]

Everyone on here is entitled to their opinion about whether being "out" on your application will harm an applicant's chances or not. I just thought I would chime in with what I have been telling others in the past.

Discussing LGBT advocacy extracurriculars are great, especially since it shows your devotion to a group of that may not get medical treatment the same way heterosexuals do. However, it CAN cause problems with your application. If your application were to be read by a conservative or homophobe, you're toast. Granted, that is not how it should be, but they'll just start finding reasons...

Unfortunately, this discrimination should not be there, but it is and I'm not necessarily sure you want to run the risk of having that "bring your application down". I've given thought to discussing this "adversity" and whatnot in my own application, but I decided against it only because of the hard stuff that can rise out of talking about homosexuality and its difficulties on paper.

 

[ILikeDrugs]

Have you ever heard of psychiatry? It's a field within medicine that treats those with mental disorders.

 

[Instatewaiter]

Have you ever heard of psychiatry? It's a field within medicine that treats those with mental disorders.

Yes and no. Disclosing a mental illness is a very slippery slope. Technically they shouldn't judge you for it but having a mental illness has a stigma attached to it specifically because it means you are much less likely to finish.

Med school is a much more stressful time than you have ever dealt with to this point. It is a time when a lot of mental illness comes out and for those who already have a mental illness, a time when it gets a lot worse. If you have already been impaired enough to need to miss time in college, how do you think medical school is going to be? Not trying to be a dick but being realistic.

 

[tryp]

I have considered this extensively. The reason I had to take time off was because it was when I was first diagnosed. I was not medicated and had not received any kind of treatment.
I have been in treatment for 2 years now and am completely stable on medication.
I have discussed this with my psychiatrist and she believes that I am capable of handling medical school without totally losing it. Now I just have to convince the AdComs

 

[ILikeDrugs]

Yes and no. Disclosing a mental illness is a very slippery slope. Technically they shouldn't judge you for it but having a mental illness has a stigma attached to it specifically because it means you are much less likely to finish.

Med school is a much more stressful time than you have ever dealt with to this point. It is a time when a lot of mental illness comes out and for those who already have a mental illness, a time when it gets a lot worse. If you have already been impaired enough to need to miss time in college, how do you think medical school is going to be? Not trying to be a dick but being realistic.

Well I agree about one not disclosing one's mental disorder. Coming from a psych background, I'm familiar with the stigma that's attached to psych disorders and would advise against if someone asked me for advise. I was actually referring to his ECs in the psych community. I don't think there would be anything wrong with that. I think the op is being a bit paranoid about the adcoms putting "put two and two together."

Tryp: do you have any other ECs that are associated with some other illnesses. Maybe you can become involved in ECs that center around another illness. For example, cancer. This way you can "throw off" the adcoms if they are trying to "put two and two together". I'm not suggesting that you be deceiving in a evil type of way (lol), but maybe this will keep any adcoms from associating your involvement with psych ECs with your personal psych issues.

 

[tryp]

Okay, maybe I'm being a wee bit overly paranoid about it