Illness-related Ws and a Gap Year

[Mel Belle]

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I've been having some real difficulty with an illness. Last semester I was down to just one lab course and this semester I'm up to three classes, though I had four originally. I dropped one because I thought I was boosting my credits too much for my stage of recovery. So, essentially, I tried to make the smart decision of not overwhelming myself when I'm not completely stable yet.

My pre-med advisor suggests that this won't be a problem, and that the Ws I have from that will be easily explained without any suspicion, because "this happens more than you think". I guess my only problem with advice from my pre-med advisor is that her advice is biased towards MD-only applicants.

I'm pretty much set to start research my junior year (next semester) and I plan on taking a 5th year, not just to catch up on some credits, but also to do additional research.

So I suppose my question is... If I only have those Ws (4 last semester and 1 this semester) and I just gradually increase my credits through my next few semesters while recovering, will that be alright on my application? (Assuming that the rest of my application is fairly strong.)

Thanks!

 

[Fencer]

This can be explained as long as you put solid Junior/Senior years. For MD/PhD applicants, it is common to do a research post-bac of 1-2 years. If you are successful over those 2-3 years, your application will be very solid and the W's would not hurt you in any significant manner.