Bad First Semester Junior Year (Sick and Family)

Applying to College
1

<p>During the Fall of my junior year, I fell ill for about three weeks.
This was during the time between Thanksgiving break and Finals, so school was in overdrive.
On top of that, my grandfather had been diagnosed with brain cancer and my grandmother with an aneurism. During this time, my mom was under great stress and she suffered from a brief loss of memory. She was unable to keep track of where she was and why she was there. This lasted a couple days. We were under the impression that she might be showing preliminary symptoms of Alzheimer's, thankfully, she wasn't.</p>

<p>As consequence of the above, my grades dropped. My grades were as follows:
Spanish Honors - A-
Calculus BC - C [I didn't study for the final, because I was overwhelmed, and failed; ended up dropping the course, and am self-studying for multi-variable next year]
Physics AP - B+
English Honors - B+
Journalism - A-
AP US History - A-</p>

<p>Aside from these, my grades have been relatively decent. Straight A-'s with a couple B's and a few flat A's.</p>

<p>My GPA now stands at 4.04, but if my junior year had been better, I know that I could be above a 4.1.</p>

<p>My question: How will colleges look upon this?</p>

<p>In terms of my GPA, what are my chances for higher tier colleges? My UC GPA stands at abour 4.32, so I think I'm at a 50% for UCLA, but I'm also interested in schools such as Pomona, USC, University of Penn, Rice, and the lot (I know these are all reaches, but perhaps I still have a chance?)</p>

<p>Additional info:
500 hours of community service (Mostly through church such as Mission trips)
A couple semesters of sports, but at a hobby-level
2230 SAT (will retake) and looking at 800s for Math II, USH, and Physics</p>

2

<p>Seems like you did great in my opinion! You should be very proud of those accomplishments; they are much more admirable than what I did my junior year with relatively few health and family problems. If I were you and knew I could do better without the series of issues you experienced, I would contact my guidance counselor and ask if he/she could explain it in their recommendation. Either that or I would explain it in person via an interview (spin it that you overcame adversity even!) Best of luck :)</p>

3

<p>You can have your HS GC address your illness in the SSR, supply them with doctor records to support your extended absence. I would not advise mentioning your mother’s memory problem, since it lasted only a ‘couple of days’ and should not have had a significant impact on your school work.</p>

4

<p>Mm… but I feel like the situation with my mom can add to the fact that I just had a lot of stuff going on.
To clarify, although the memory problem was only a couple days, the fear of her actually have Alzheimer was present for a longer period. My dad is away for about half the year, ever year, which would basically leave me and my sister to live on our own on top of having to care for my mother when her conditions got severe enough. That event probably had the largest effect on me during that time.</p>

5

<p>My GC has already told me that she would help me with this in her letter, but still, how much of a role would that play in fixing this mess that I’ve gotten into?</p>