Hello! I’m relatively new to College Confidential. I have a question I hope you all can help me with. My daughter is a rising junior in high school, and while she is normally an A student, she had a serious illness in her sophomore year that required surgery and hospitalization. She missed a lot of school as a result. Her teachers were accommodating, but even when she made up the work, her grades suffered to some extent because she missed so much. How can her one-semester lapse in grades be explained when she is applying to college? I’ve heard you should not mention negative subjects or make excuses for low grades, and it seems inappropriate to go into the grisly details of her health issues on a college application. But her illness and absences do constitute a legitimate reason for the anomaly in her otherwise strong GPA. I’d be grateful for advice and insights!
This is what the extra space on the common application is for. She should explain what happened in simple terms, just as you have. One paragraph should be sufficient.
I’d recommend that you ask her guidance counselor to note the illness in her/her recommendation. The information might be better received coming from a third party. No need to go into more details than you have here.
Guidance counselor can address this in his/her letter. Can discuss it as a momentary bump and emphasize how your daughter recovered and academically got back on track
Agree that guidance counselor can touch on this so it doesn’t sound like the student is asking for pity. Our kids both had some health issues which affected their HS grades. The counselor touched on it and I believe they MAY have as well (tho I never saw either kids’ application nor essays).
Our guidance counselor asked us to write a note and then he included it with her transcript. He also mentioned illness himself.
I wonder if your daughter was properly accommodated. We got all work every single day, including missing grades. This is hard for teachers to organize and keep up with, but it can be done, and we saw a lawyer to help them take it seriously. We kept it friendly, but firm.
My D’s guidance counselor included it in her recommendation letter. She too had surgery and missed school in her Freshman year.
Thanks so much! I am interested in compmom’s note about proper accommodations. Reading this, I don’t think my daughter was properly accommodated: her dad and I met with her teachers to try to figure out what she needed to do, but they didn’t send daily work or anything like that. After she got out of the hospital, she had to work overtime to catch up on everything, on top of the regular daily schoolwork. It never occurred to me to get a lawyer! Anyway, thanks to you all for your help. I will ask the guidance counselor to be sure to include it in his letter.
I agree with @happy1 .
For others, just want to add that seeing a lawyer or advocate does not have to be adversarial. Our school seemed relieved to have a solution provided. And it gave administration permission to ask things of the staff.
I am an attorney and advocated for our kids, but it was still very challenging for us an the HS. The teachers didn’t like having to prepare homework packets for our kids so frequently and it was very tough to keep up with languages especially with frequent and prolonged absences. Our kids didn’t get much in the way of accommodations either. Happily, our kids did both end up at a U that worked well for them. The U was happy to work with our kids and our kids got their degrees.
We had a sheet that had entries like work in class (including what was done and any papers), homework assigned (including any papers needed), quizzed or tests given in class, missing grades in gradebook (this helped teachers keep track and kept my daughter up) and some others I don’t remember. She even took exams at home.
The teachers were told to do this every day whether my daughter was there or not. She had a chronic illness punctuated by surgery or crisis. Every day the school nurse would collect it and then either I or her sister would pick it up at the nurse’s office. This way, the daughter with health issues could go in and out of school, go up for an hour, come home, go back up for a class, and so on.
One other thing: she got permission to do extracurriculars despite the policy of requiring full day attendance that day. The principal agreed this was necessary for her personal development. It worked great and she is now in a PhD program for one of her extracurricular arts.
This may not apply to anyone reading this. But the thing is, I never ever would have asked for this. The lawyer, who cost $150, acted like it was obvious and simple and it actually was. My kid had suffered endless frustration trying to get the school to do what was needed, and our expectations were much lower honestly. It was amazing how effective the teachers became almost instantly. The principal felt it should be daily so it was routine, and also the teachers weren’t noticing if she was absent or not so it could not be done on that basis.
Sorry for the tangent. But noone’s transcript should suffer because of illness. That is the whole point of the Americans with Disabilities Act. By all means explain or better have the GC explain, but for others in this position, there might be ways to make things easier. Don’t mean to make the OP feel bad because this probably won’t make any difference at all.
OP, I am glad your D has gotten her health in order, and is back on track.
One of DD’s best friends had some troubling medical conditions in the fall of her sophomore year of HS, and they lingered through most of the year. She had a brief hospitalization over her Winter Break, and a setback in late Spring. DD brought her copies of all her class notes for the 5 (of 7) classes they took together. Most of the teachers were glad to help but some didn’t know how frequently they should have been putting summaries together of what was missed, and when it should be made up. Truthfully, I would think the best approach would probably depend on the particular course.
Thankfully, one of her parents is a teacher in another school district, and had contacted the GC and Principal early - once she had missed three classes - and suggested that an accommodation might be appropriate, as they were unsure of how her condition would progress. Our HS GC was not great at coming up with plans/ideas, but the approach her parents suggested (as recommended by the HS GC in the other school district) was taken as a starting point. Most teachers seem to prefer being told “do these X specific things” instead of more vague “we need to accommodate her…”
Ultimately, her GC included a very brief explanation on her rec letter that due to a temporary but significant medical condition, while this student struggled her grades temporarily dipped, she overcame this adversity and returned to being one of the very top students in all of her classes. I believe her parents provided the GC with suggested language for the GC to include.
She ended up being accepted Early Decision at her top choice, at an elite school, and is thriving in a program she really loves.
I wish your D similar success.
This exactly: Most teachers seem to prefer being told “do these X specific things” instead of more vague “we need to accommodate her…”
Colleges seem to look favorably on kids who overcome this kind of challenge.
My son missed 5 weeks of school as a sophomore. He was at a boarding school, and didn’t return as a junior. His second semester sophomore GPA was below 3.0. The GC explained in the rec, and my son wrote about it in the extra space. He’s graduating today, and off to his first choice college in the fall!