Should I disclose my disability or not

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oralcare123

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I plan to apply to a couple of dental schools and do not know if I should disclose my disability or just keep quiet until I am accepted. Some people said, that schools might have additional grants for accepting people with disabilities, some say that I would not be accepted, because I do not have a potential of a healthy person.
 
From the outside I look normal. Migraines, chronic pain, PTSD are the main issues
 
Do you mean grants, as in, money to offer applicants in the form of financial aid? If so, wouldn't the financial offers be made after your acceptance? If that's the case, and your only reason for disclosing your disability, I would probably wait on it.

I guess my advice would be to wait until your acceptance because I doubt it will help you get accepted but it may hurt you? If there's no benefit I don't see why it would be important to mention. Best of luck!
 
No, the grants are for school, not for me. I know state universities are getting money from the government to accommodate students with disabilities and there should be no discrimination. Discrimination is still there, but impossible to prove.
Someone told me there might be extra incentive for schools for accepting students with disabilities. I do not know if it is truth. Anyway, I need to somehow explain 5 years it took me to partially recover from trauma.
 
I would strongly recommend against disclosing any type of psychiatric issues on professional school applications unless explicitly asked. There is nothing positive that will come from that in terms of scholarship money or even kudos to you for overcoming difficulties in your life. In fact, you will open yourself up to a great deal of second guessing and likely even increase your chance of being rejected for questionable emotional stability. As ironic as it might seem, the medical field is very biased against people with psychiatric diagnoses. Given what medical training is like, including being exposed to some things that are emotionally tough to handle, I will readily admit that I would have had concerns about admitting someone who has known PTSD to medical school. I wouldn't be surprised if plenty of dental school adcoms might feel the same way. So the less disclosed about it the better IMO.

Now all that being said, you should have (and hopefully already have had) some honest discussions with your psychiatrist and/or neurologist regarding whether you are going to be able to cope with dental training. I haven't gone to dental school, so I'm not the best person to comment on the specifics. But I would imagine that dental schools have technical requirements just like medical schools do, and you and your psychiatrist/neurologist should consider whether you will be able to meet those standards given your pain and PTSD issues. You should also consider the personal toll it may take on you if any part of your training is likely to resemble the situation that first triggered your PTSD. Again, this issue is best explored with the help of your psychiatrist.

Best of luck to you.
 
My thoughts exactly. I was explaining to my doctor that no university will want me, but he wanted me to inquire
 
Regardless of how much more empathic or insightful a chronic illness has made you, I don't feel it should be brought up on these applications unless you can assure programs that it is under control or in remission that is reasonably expected to be maintained, that you're under the care to keep it that way, and that if it unexpectedly returns you now have the experience to recognize the early symptoms and get help before it impacts your performance.

The natural course of migraines, chronic pain, and PTSD is that they can be severely debilitating, sensitive to changes in stress/environment, and remain in many cases unpredictable even after periods of good control. They go against everything that an adcom would want to hear to feel confident you could succeed in the rigorous environment of medical/dental school. PTSD aside, migraine and chronic pain are intimately intertwined with mental health, and there are plenty of threads about the stigma of mental illness in gaining admissions.

I would not mention these things at all unless you want to raise suspicions that you'll be a student who can't handle the physical or emotional stress of your professional education.
 
I would advise against disclosing, as well. I had to disclose part of my history when I applied, and, although it worked out okay with applying, there were issues that arose from some of the administrators who had disagreed with the decision to admit me. As for handling the stress/workload, it's possible (not sure what your situation is--mine was war-related, so not really in those situations while I've been in school). Send me a pm if you want to talk more. Happy to help if I can 🙂
 
How would you explain long breaks? I took couple of years to reflect on myself and three more to travel around Europe🙂
It takes a reasonable amount of time to improve and take exams, but still I need a reasonable explanation on what I did all those years. I have only one child, so cant say I had to take time of to raise my children. Maybe financial difficulties? Was abroad accompanying my husband?I would like to avoid lying
 
How would you explain long breaks? I took couple of years to reflect on myself and three more to travel around Europe🙂
It takes a reasonable amount of time to improve and take exams, but still I need a reasonable explanation on what I did all those years. I have only one child, so cant say I had to take time of to raise my children. Maybe financial difficulties? Was abroad accompanying my husband?I would like to avoid lying
You shouldn't lie, but again, you should leave out all the unflattering details. So sure, say that you were reflecting on what you wanted to do with your life and then living abroad with your husband, plus raising your child. And now you are older and more mature and have settled on dentistry as the right career for you. It's ok to have taken a few years off to reflect on yourself and travel around Europe in your early 20s as long as you have your s*** together now. That's what makes you a nontrad.
 
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