<p>I posted in this forum earlier asking for advice on my situation, and I recently just met with my GC to discuss how the college application will go. Prior to this year, I'd always been a diligent student and I had straight As in rigorous courses. The first half of my junior year, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, my family situation spiraled downward, I ended up with 3 Fs and 1 D in my classes. Now that it is the second half, I have pulled my grades up to As, but I'm now concerned about how the college adcoms will view my application and the severe grade dip. </p>
<p>My GC gave me the option of repeating the failed courses in my senior year. My conflict now is debating whether to go this route. I am aware it would definitely make my transcript a lot more solid, as my Fs and Ds will be replaced with "In Progress" when I repeat the course. However, and this sounds so petty, but I'd have to take classes with many of my younger classmates, and I will be the only senior in the class. I would also have to sacrifice several classes, like AP English Literature, that I had been wanting to take next year. I am still trying to figure out how to squeeze the failed courses into my schedule. Should I just stop worrying about what people will think of me, and repeat the courses? I'm devastated by my screw-up the first half of this year, and I suppose it would be optimal for college admissions.
Also, would my GC still have to explain my mental illness/extenuating circumstances to adcoms? Thank you in advance for any help, I appreciate it. </p>
<p>You need to speak with your GC again. Ask about what happens if you don’t repeat the classes. Ask about ways to repeat some (or all) of them during the summer instead of waiting until next fall.</p>
<p>1) Are they necessary for graduation? Then you have to re-take them.</p>
<p>2) Are they necessary for admissions at the colleges/universities on your current list? Then you have to re-take them, or come up with a list of places that don’t care about those classes.</p>
<p>3) If not necessary for graduation or admissions, if you do re-take them do the bad grades vanish entirely and permanently from your record? Then you probably should re-take them because your GPA is likely to recover.</p>
<p>4) If not necessary for graduation or admissions, if you do re-take them will both the old bad grades and the (presumably) good new grades appear on your record? Then you need to make a decision about whether or not it is worth it to you to do that.</p>
<p>And, don’t forget to ask your GC about whether or not he/she feels it necessary or advisable to discuss your breakdown in any letters to the adcoms.</p>
<p>@happymomof1, they are all AP classes that are not necessary for graduation. The new grades replace the old grades, but my transcript will show that I’ve repeated the course. My main concern is, even if most of the colleges on my list claim to have a “holistic” process, adcoms are still wary of mental illness even if the patient has recovered completely (as seen by my grade recovery from Fs back to As). Is it better to try and cover everything up to pretend like nothing happened, or to simply explain it on the application? </p>
<p>My sense is that in the wake of a number of very public suicides at schools going back about a decade ago, UG institutions began to be more wary of accepting students with pre-existing psychiatric issues. Not only do they need to worry about the legal implications (families have sued colleges for many millions after these suicides, saying that the college should have known more, done more, etc…) but obviously, it is a public relations nightmare. In addition, most college health plans have minimal ability to provide long term outpatient psych care (they may limit it to 6 or 10 sessions per year), and not all college campuses have enough psych providers within walking distance to deal with the volume, so given that anxiety and depression can be chronic or recurrent health problems, colleges may not feel they can provide the level of services that a kid might need. Additionally, kids who get sick again during a school year may leave after freshman year or may not graduate in 4 years, hurting those stats as well. </p>
<p>As you can see, there are many reasons why a school may not wanna take a kids with a known psychiatric illness. So I am not sure I would be hurrying to tell them. One never wants to be dishonest and you certainly can not say or imply that you had cancer as the reason for your low grades. But it does seem unfortunate that stigma for mental health problems still exists, as kids recovered from cancer probably do not feel they need to hide this when they apply. I think you are best off admitting that the bad grades were due to an illness, but you should feel no need to specify the illness, and they can NOT ask. They may assume it is psych, but they will not know in admissions unless you tell them. Of course the other side of the coin is that you should be completely honest and only schools that feel they can provide you with adequate resources will accept you. If you are a top applicant, definitely consider women’s colleges if you are female, as they tend to be more understanding in this regard. </p>
<p>5minutes -</p>
<p>There are a number of threads on mental health issues in the Parents Forum, and there are a lot of smart parents who hang out in that forum who have seen the type of situation you are in. I’d suggest that you rewrite your post a bit to focus very clearly on your question about how much to reveal, when to reveal it, and how to reveal it, and then start a new thread in that forum.</p>