<p>During second semester Junior year, I suffered severe insomnia during and a little before finals. I had an average of 1-2 hours of sleep per night. It is a chronic condition with me, diagnosed by a sleep doctor. They tried to put me on meds for it but they didn't work--it's been a legitimate condition w/ me, not just that I had trouble sleeping or anything. As a result, my seocnd semester grades dropped severly because of the finals. Should I mention this to colleges? Would they care?</p>
<p>I'm so sorry to hear that. If you think that insomnia had a great impact on your grades (this isn't just an excuse; this was THE reason why your grades dropped so much), then you should mention it in your college applications. And I trust that this means severe, not A to A-'s, for instance.</p>
<p>do you still have insomnia?</p>
<p>Hahaha, not to demean your thread or anything, but I just thought it was funny that I averaged 2-3 hours of sleep during practically the whole month of May and I don't even have a sleep condition :P</p>
<p>Finals + AP tests + SATs/ACTs = not fun. Insomnia is a legitimate disease and if you were diagnosed by a doctor, I don't see any reason why you can't tell colleges about this. It's not your fault that you have a disease, it's beyond your control.</p>
<p>Just my opinion guys, but do you really want to let the college of your choice know that you will be sleeping/half-awake/comatose on caffeine at their school? As an adcom, it would be a turnoff to me. Why give money and aid and an acceptance letter to a student that may not be able to take full advantage of my campus's facilities when there are hundreds, maybe thousands of waitlisted/refused students that could have!? Unlike depression or substance abuse (in many cases), this is not something that happened way in the past and has been resolved. By the way this thread is sounding, it sounds like you still have insomnia and it could still affect you in the future. </p>
<p>I hope this does not sound rude; I do not mean it in that sort of way at all. Just my view on it.</p>
<p>I think most people suffer from anxiety during finals or AP test season. I slept around three hours a night two weeks before the AP tests. I highly doubt that the adcom would accept lower scores from you on account of insomnia, unless it is so severe it affects your everyday life all year, not just around important test dates.</p>
<p>ivyleaguewannabe: I have to disagree with you. I just got off the phone with Yale at around 4:15 asking about AP test scores. I asked if my admissions will suffer if (and when) I receive a 1 or 2 on two of my exams. I explained that I took the courses online and the teachers did not prepare the students well (I also have another letter from mentors at my school who can attest to the fact that even the brightest of students...valedictorians...suffered as a result of these online courses). Well, the admissions officer I spoke with told me that writing a brief one page letter explaining the situation should help a lot. He said they rarely (and he emphasized rarely) reject people based off of things that were either out of their control or have a legitimate reason to back it up with. (Perhaps I should also emphasize the fact that I took 7 AP courses this year, and I probably only did poorly on 2 of them. I still have more from 10th grade that I took, so I don't think that two bad AP scores will hurt me...plus, I did extremely well in the courses so obviously, they will see that something must have been wrong. Just explain the circumstances and you should be fine.)</p>
<p>To the OP: definitely explain the situation to the admissions officers and have your doctor write you a note. If they reject you solely on your circumstances, I will be shocked. Besides, they can't discriminate based on medical history. Furthermore, the admissions process is holistic, not specific. Good luck nonetheless!</p>
<p>Cool, that is good to know. Ya, I've still got insomnia (for the past 5 years) but we were trying out meds and stuff during finals so i was really messed up. (The doctor's idea was that if he put me on stimulants during the day, i'd sleep during the night...I ended up just not sleeping at all). My grades didn't die exactly since I had good grades for the rest of the semester, but they were about a full grade lower than they would have been (A to B sort of thing).</p>