Medical Should I mention mental illness in application/interviews? Does this count as upward trend?

[Mr.Smile12]

Hello!! I'm planning to apply to med school in the upcoming cycle.

So I've always been a poor student mostly because I had huge issues focusing, although I was never quite able to pinpoint what exactly it was that made me a good test taker but end up getting bad/mediocre grades. I also had pretty severe anxiety because I couldn't tell what was wrong and overall it was not a good time.

This continued until literally my second-to-last semester in college, after which I saved up enough to see a psychiatrist to confirm whether I just had a personality flaw or whether something was really going on medically. I was diagnosed with ADD, started medication, and after messing with the dose/meds a couple times I found the right ones for me and I was suddenly able to do so many things I couldn't before!! The change in my academic abilities was literally night and day and my very last semester in college, I got a 4.0.

Unfortunately it didn't have much of an effect on my overall GPA which has already been damaged (~2.9 - 3.0), and while it is an upward trend, the trend is only one semester LOL

Is it worth mentioning somewhere on my application what happened, and indicating that I'm now medically in a place where I can succeed academically and my last semester is proof, or does this fall under the taboo I've heard of not mentioning mental health at all? Where on the app would that info even go? The advice I've gotten so far is to not mention it and say that I was just a poor student that got it together, but that feels like not being honest about my whole story.

I got a 518 on my MCAT if that changes anything. Thank you so much for your help!!

It's too bad that it took you this long. Almost every university and graduate school I know of has invested resources in "learning services specialists" and with your student health insurance/fee you might have been able to access a psychiatrist who could have documented your learning issues and suggested accommodations that could have helped you in your coursework. As it stands you probably need to do a SMP to prove that the 4.0 isn't a fluke and that proper management of your learning/mental health issues is working. Proper documentation and declaration of any accommodations you needed is critical for making any such argument a positive one. No, the high MCAT only accentuates the issue of your GPA not being high, but it can help you get traction for a SMP application. Your documented diagnosis needs to address why you didn't need accommodations for exams like the MCAT.

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[MusicDOc124]

I want to expand on a point above regarding a fluke. One semester is not enough. That is not an upward trend. A trend by definition is a direction in which something is developing or changing, indicating an ongoing process/ongoing progress in this case. One and done semester of good grades is not on going/developing. There are questions to be had - were the professors easy grades? Were grades mostly attendance based? Did s/he get lucky? You also mention the 4.0, but you don't mention what classes you were taking. Being final semester, were they all electives or the "easy courses people try to save for the end, or were they all sciences? You need a longer period for it to be an upward trend, and an SMP will provide that, as well as being more science heavy which will demonstrate a solid foundation in the sciences as you approach med school. You will need a solid MCAT as well.

 

[Goro]

Read this:

• Goro's advice for pre-meds who need reinvention

Note, a high MCAT does not remediate a weak GPA. It only highlights the discrepancy.

Concerns about mental health issues can allayed in Adcoms minds by a strong stretch of academic excellence.