How to not throw my brother under the bus

[theWUbear]

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Throughout my junior and senior year of college, I had to deal with a family in chaos because my younger brother was dropping out of high school. When I would fly home, I could get him to go to school, and during the summer I could convince him to go to summer school, but it was apparent that the rents had lost efficacy in dealing with him.

I would like to mention this in my apps under whatever "explain poor grades" prompt I am given, because this caused me a great load of stress and even necessitated me flying home mid semester (twice) in an effort to help.

Here's the problem: Despite his troubles at the end of HS and beginning of college (which lead to him not ever technically graduating HS), he was always the brilliant one in the family. When he went to school, he killed it. Besides a couple dropped classes at the beginning of college when he was still having problems, he currently has a 4.0 in college and will most likely apply to every med school I apply to, just a couple years later. Do I risk throwing him under the bus by citing his problems? Indeed, he will also have to explain them when he applies to medical school, but I don't want to hurt his chances...

 

[mmmcdowe]

Throughout my junior and senior year of college, I had to deal with a family in chaos because my younger brother was dropping out of high school. When I would fly home, I could get him to go to school, and during the summer I could convince him to go to summer school, but it was apparent that the rents had lost efficacy in dealing with him.

I would like to mention this in my apps under whatever "explain poor grades" prompt I am given, because this caused me a great load of stress and even necessitated me flying home mid semester (twice) in an effort to help.

Here's the problem: Despite his troubles at the end of HS and beginning of college (which lead to him not ever technically graduating HS), he was always the brilliant one in the family. When he went to school, he killed it. Besides a couple dropped classes at the beginning of college when he was still having problems, he currently has a 4.0 in college and will most likely apply to every med school I apply to, just a couple years later. Do I risk throwing him under the bus by citing his problems? Indeed, he will also have to explain them when he applies to medical school, but I don't want to hurt his chances...

Nah, you won't. If anything, your performance at medical school will affect him more (at that school at least) than anything you say about him in an essay.

 

[osumc2014]

you probably shouldn't discuss this on here...best of luck

 

[shiftingmirage]

Considering the number of applicants a school gets, I don't think they adcom will rememeber your brother's name. You could also just omit your brother's name from your essay. I think you can discuss your situation without throwing himunder a bus.

 

[GellaBella]

yeah why do you have to mention his name? You can just describe the situation with your brother. Adcoms won't know how many brothers you have and which one you're talking about, if they even remember this when its time for your brother to apply, which I doubt they will. Leave his name out and I'd say there is no problem

 

[HurricaneKatt]

I agree. Tell your story, but leave out his name. 🙂 Good Luck!

 

[CoolWhipp]

I agree. Tell your story, but leave out his name. 🙂 Good Luck!

There's a thought.

 

[psharma02]

You could just say a relative.. or a sibling instead of naming him..

P.S. unless you name him, give out his SSN, copy his passport, give his address, jot his credit score, and give his waist measurements... I doubt the med school will go that far as to make a connection..

 

[Tin Man]

Dude, be real.

First, you say that you stressed out badly enough over your brother to justify bad grades, and that you cared so much about him that you needed to fly home in order to help.

But then you are willing to go so far as to destroy his medical school dreams just to get ahead in yours. That doesn't really give me the warm, family feeling you tried to blame your problems on.

If you care about your brother as much as you tried to convince us you did, then you wouldn't even think about selling him out. If you don't care about your brother, then telling us that HE was the reason your grades suffered is a bit humorous.

Either way, don't even bring it up. Just say you had family problems and leave it at that, or even better yet, just say that it was a bad year, but you were able to make it up by doing [x] and [y].

 

[neutropos]

This thread is too LOL.

 

[NotSur]

Better yet, just change his name to something else. I did this in a few of my essays to protect privacy. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

 

[Steeler7588]

But then you are willing to go so far as to destroy his medical school dreams just to get ahead in yours.

I think you're blowing this way out of proportion. OP, just leave his name out of it. Even if you explicitly named him, the likelihood anyone at the medical schools would remember is slim (but still, don't name him).