How to explain medical leave

<p>My son graduated 4th in his HS class and graduated 1st from a rigorous engineering program in his senior year. SAT was 2100. Fall 2010 attended a very selective school. But by the end of the first semester went from A's in classes to not attending classes and bombed his finals partly because of anxiety issues he deals with and started self-medicating with pot/alcohol. ( He was diagnosed with GAD as a child, but was managing very well at home/ through out HS) Second semester he took a medical leave. He is now home getting the help he needs for his problems. Both some immaturity and the GAD were reasons for him not doing well and having to leave.
Now he has a full-time internship with a bio-medical firm for the summer which he is enjoying and will be attending local community college this fall and possibly in the spring as well. He said his goal is to do as well as he can, hopefully get 4.0 to make up for his dismall first semester (2.8). He also has a semester's worth of AP credits ( all scores of 5)<br>
He's not sure he wants to return to his college, but is thinking of transferring to the Honor's college at a university in another state. (He had already been accepted there for fall2010 but declined) If he transfers, will he have to explain his freshman year and if so, how should he explain his mediocre grades and his medical leave to the schools he will try to transfer into? Or will they focus on his performance at the CC and his hs records/SATs?</p>

<p>My situation is somewhat different, but I took a medical leave from college before transferring. I left school in the middle of the year, and did not contact any of the schools to let them know until after I had been admitted. So far, all of them have been very supportive of my decision to leave school and my semester of Ws.</p>

<p>I can’t really answer your specific questions about how to let schools know what happened, but I had the registrar at my old school send letters to schools I applied to saying that I withdrew for medical reasons and didn’t just bail on school.</p>

<p>jwy141, Did the schools you applied to ask anything about your medical leave? Did you have any interviews? OR did you just send in applications?</p>