How does admissions view chronic illness

[Breakerboy]

For the majority of my undergrad career I was in and out of school missing two to three weeks at a time. It took almost three years for me to finally get a diagnosis, and in that time I had twelve instances where I was out of school for 2-3 weeks, totaling around 6 months in the previous 3 years of my undergrad. Obviously this had a negative impact on my GPA as well as every other area of my life. Now I am in my 4th year and close to graduation even due to all the delays.

My question is if the admissions would take this into consideration, or if there is even a place in the application to explain this, so at least my application doesn’t get thrown out due to a low gpa.

If anyone has had any experience with something like this please contact me, I’d love to talk to someone who has been down this path before.

Thanks for the help

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[thirsty4chicken]

My freshman year roommate was diagnosed with lymphoma his sophomore year. He went though two rounds of chemo, and now the cancer is in remission. He had to take a fifth year to finish classes.

But, after all that, he's sitting pretty getting his MD/PHD at UCSF.

 

[FrickenhugeMD]

I would think that your personal statement would be the best place to put this. Really explain and expand on it as a reason for your grades, but also as a reason to pursue medicine? Is there a box you can check for having circumstances like that?

 

[LizzyM]

If you have a pre-med advisor or a faculty member who knows of your struggles and who would corroborate your situation in a LOR it helps. It will also help to have an MCAT that exceeds what one would expect given your gpa. That tends to show that you have the stuff but that you were hampered by your health problems. You might want to be circumspect about your illness (if you don't want to go into specific details) but you should tell the adcom enough so that it becomes obvious that you are being treated (or have been cured) to the point where you will not have absenteeism in med school and that your illness is not going to interfer with your ability to provide patient care.

Your personal statement should go beyond your personal illness experiences in describing how you developed your interest in medicine as a career.

 

[Tired Pigeon]

For the majority of my undergrad career I was in and out of school missing two to three weeks at a time. It took almost three years for me to finally get a diagnosis, and in that time I had twelve instances where I was out of school for 2-3 weeks, totaling around 6 months in the previous 3 years of my undergrad. Obviously this had a negative impact on my GPA as well as every other area of my life. Now I am in my 4th year and close to graduation even due to all the delays.

My question is if the admissions would take this into consideration, or if there is even a place in the application to explain this, so at least my application doesn’t get thrown out due to a low gpa.

If anyone has had any experience with something like this please contact me, I’d love to talk to someone who has been down this path before.

Thanks for the help

What is your GPA & MCAT? If your numbers are high enough to get you through the initial screen, you will have the opportunity to explain things in some manner (LizzyM had some good suggestions for you here). If you're sitting at like a 2.0/23 or something, it's a different story.

 

[uncgrad05]

From experience, I was diagnosed with lymphoma my sophomore year and did chemo and radiation for about a year. In short, my gpa sucked . I'm a reapplicant this year. Some people can recover their grades rather quickly, but I on the other hand graduated with a 3.0 then had to do a lot of post-bac work and a summer program. I still haven't been admitted this year. I've been told that it's because of my undergrad gpa by multiple deans of admission. So, even though they say that they consider every part of your application as a whole, if your ug gpa is less than stellar (but, I got a decent MCAT score of 32), then you pretty much have an uphill battle. But, this is expected, because your up against so many great candidates that have great scores. You just have to work hard. Networking helps too!

 

[Tired Pigeon]

From experience, I was diagnosed with lymphoma my sophomore year and did chemo and radiation for about a year. In short, my gpa sucked . I'm a reapplicant this year. Some people can recover their grades rather quickly, but I on the other hand graduated with a 3.0 then had to do a lot of post-bac work and a summer program. I still haven't been admitted this year. I've been told that it's because of my undergrad gpa by multiple deans of admission. So, even though they say that they consider every part of your application as a whole, if your ug gpa is less than stellar (but, I got a decent MCAT score of 32), then you pretty much have an uphill battle. But, this is expected, because your up against so many great candidates that have great scores. You just have to work hard. Networking helps too!

Great advice about networking. On a related note, try to find a mentor who can act as your advocate, maybe a professor who knows you well - a really strong LOR will help quell doubts about your GPA.