Mental Illness on College Apps?

Parents Forum
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<p>I just wanted to graciously thank anyone who takes the time to respond, I truly appreciate it. I'm going to try and keep this as concise as I can!</p>

<p>The situation: </p>

<p>I'm currently a junior. I've always been a very diligent student, freshman + sophomore year straight As with 5 AP classes total. I began feeling symptoms of depression/anxiety towards the end of sophomore year, but brushed it off as burnout. A busy summer later, I started junior year, and the symptoms continued to worsen. My mother has bipolar disorder that also worsened around this time. My junior year courses were consistent with the rigor of the previous courses I'd taken, but I ended up with 2 Fs and 1 D during first semester. These grades were in AP US History, AP Biology, and AP English Language. I finally got the courage to talk to my GC with my mom, and got help, and am now fully recovered. Now that I am finishing up second semester, I have straight As in those same courses. </p>

<p>My GC has given me the option of repeating the 3 courses I got Ds/Fs in when I begin senior year--our school policy replaces the old grade with the new grade. This would raise my GPA, and my transcript, during the college app process, would state "In Progress" for my failed classes, rather than the Ds/Fs. My other option would be to continue to take rigorous classes (AP classes) and do well in them, as I have been following recovery, and show colleges I am capable of succeeding as I had in the past. </p>

<p>Question: Should I repeat the courses that I failed next year? This would raise my GPA, but require I sacrifice 2 AP classes that I had been looking forward to taking. Or should I simply continue to take rigorous courses and earn high grades in them? I have done much research on how adcoms view mental illness, and am aware that colleges are extremely cautious around these situations. How much should I ask my GC to reveal about my situation? </p>

<p>I had been looking into liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, Barnard, Swarthmore, etc.) and Ivy Leagues like Dartmouth and Brown, but now, I'm not so sure how promising my prospects are. I have a considerably unique EC I've been doing for 11 years that I hope to talk about, and I have teachers in mind that I know will write me a strong rec, I am just concerned how my grade drop will affect my admissions process. </p>

<p>(Also, I'm sorry if I came off as "bragging" or anything of that nature, that was not my intention at all!) </p>

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<p>Would the fact that the courses were replaced show up on your transcript?
What classes did you want to take this year? Are they in your potential major?
What does your GC recommend? Your parents? Your healthcare professional?</p>

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<p>What does your GC think you should do? It seems like he/she has been very supportive so far and would give you good advice. You are lucky that you have this support.
What are the AP classes you would miss out on if you repeated the first semester courses? Could you possibly take the honors version, or take one of them during the summer after junior year? How many APs would you have at the end of senior year if you repeated the classes? Personally, I think GPA trumps a bunch of AP classes.
I also think you’re wise to be careful about revealing a problem with depression, even if you have it under control. Why give them a reason to question your health and fitness for college?<br>
If you were my Dd, I’d advise you to make up the grades and not discuss the depression. I also think the idea of a smaller school like the ones you’ve mentioned will probably be the most supportive environment for college, which also seems wise.
Good luck to youz1</p>

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<p>@bopper, yes I do believe my transcript would mark them as R for repeating. Would this be seen in a negative light by colleges? I wanted to take AP Statistics and AP English Literature, statistics is definitely relevant for Economics, which is what I am planning on going into. All supporting adults are saying “it’s up to you” so I am trying to weigh out the pros and cons of each option as best I can, but I’ve seem to come to a dead end. </p>

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<p>If you’re interested in Wellesley, take a look a Bryn Mawr college as well. It’s a wonderful school and is has little more friendly admit rate. Grinnell College in Iowa is another great LAC that sometimes kids focused on the east coast don’t consider, which helps with admissions, too. Scripps in California and Whitman in Washington state are also really wonderful schools that might be a match for you. I mention these not because I don’t think you should apply to your reaches, but that everyone should have a range of schools- not just those with single digit admit rates.</p>

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<p>Honestly, I don’t think that AP Statistics is going to be that helpful in terms of admissions, and it’s something you can easily take in college. I do think that AP English Lit will be an important course to have on your transcript, although not as important as AP math and science. Will you be taking AP Calc and Chem or Physics?<br>
Your GC should be able to advise you on how the past students have done in admissions with the various courses your school offers.</p>

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<p>Glad to hear you got the help you needed!
Are the D’s and F for one semester only? If you have A’s in them now for second semester will there be a huge drop in your overall GPA?
Retake the classes and raise your GPA if it truly is affected. You’ve got lots of time later in life for Statistics and English lit. Getting your GPA up so colleges look at you is more important right now.</p>

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<p>What are your standardized test scores? These will certainly add to the picture. I think you should retake the problematic AP classes. I think you should strongly consider the historically women’s colleges. Bryn Mawr, Mt Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, etc. They have been very accommodating and understanding of mental health issues in their students. Of the Ivy’s, Yale (I am faculty there) seems to be understanding and there are good resources for students with mental health issues. There are more psychiatrists per capita here in New Haven than any other small city in the country (may be urban myth!) and the student health service is top notch in the psych area. If you get top standardized test scores, Yale MAY be an option as well. Obviously a big reach, as it is for everyone, but they are not afraid of accepting kids with known psychiatric problems if they are brilliant and if the student has taken the positive steps to minimize recurrent issues, understanding that even the best treatment is not perfect. Ever see “A Beautiful Mind”? Seems like the Yale campus some days! MIT on the other hand, had very bad public experience with family suing after a violent suicide. They tend to shy away from students with prior psych hx. Good luck and I think it is great that you got the help you needed and recovered quickly. That shows the colleges RESILIENCE, the new buzz word for admissions attractive students. </p>

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<p>Thank you everyone for your advice! So it seems the general consensus is to retake the AP classes–I’m still trying to figure out how to fit all of the failed classes in, but hopefully I can manage. In the case that I am unable to fit them all in, is it still beneficial to have a lesser number of Ds/Fs? </p>

<p>@moonchild, thank you for your suggestions! My GC said it was “totally up to me”, so I’m trying to decide what will ultimately benefit my academic future. Also, do you think it’s better for my GC to simply mention “illness” rather than “mental illness”? </p>

<p>I’ve taken AP Physics B, AP Chemistry, and both AP Calculuses already, and received As in all. I was signed up to take AP Physics C this year, but talked with my GC about my depression early on and was able to get a doctor’s note to have a “medical withdrawal” and drop the class, so that’s on my transcript as well. </p>

<p>@gouf78, after my Ds/Fs from the first semester, my GPA dropped from 4.4 to 3.7 weighted, and 3.9 to 3.2 unweighted. After I complete this second semester however, my GPA should be 3.95 weighted, and if I repeat as many of the Ds/Fs as I can, my GPA should be back up to 4.3ish. Thank you so much for the advice! </p>

<p>@barbfarm1, my ACT is currently a 34, and I have SAT IIs Literature 780, US History 800, and Math 2 800. I am also looking into applying to some foreign universities (such as in England) who mostly only focus on standardized test scores (SATs/ACT/APs) so that is also another option for me. I really appreciate the suggestions for colleges, I will definitely research more into Yale and women’s colleges. </p>

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<p>Did you take the AP exams for those 3 courses? It sounds like you had poor grades during the first semester, but brought them up and successfully completed each course at the end of the year. So if you could pull 4’s and 5’s on the AP exams for each (History, Biology, English)-- then I would think it would be waste of time to repeat the courses. It would probably be best to move forward and then address that briefly in the section of the college app that gives you room to explain anything that you think needs explaining. You would be able to simply tell the colleges that you were given the option to repeat the courses, but because you had pulled your grades up to an A by the end of the year and you did well on the AP exams, you felt that your time was better spent doing something new rather than trying to make your transcript look better. </p>

<p>If you can’t do well on the AP exams, that’s a different matter. </p>

<p>I realize that you wouldn’t have the AP scores yet, but I think you can discuss that with your GC, and make a tentative schedule now based on how confident you feel. If your AP scores disappoint --then that would be a good sign that perhaps you do need to make up the work.</p>

<p>Also, please broaden your college search to include some match/safety schools you would feel comfortable attending – not just in order to be assured of getting in somewhere, but because mental illness is something that can return. If you are prone to depression & anxiety, you might decide down the line that you will do better to attend a somewhat less competitive, less pressure-ridden college. You can’t predict the future, but you might be in a much better position to make the best choice for your needs next spring. </p>

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<p>I find it strange that your school would put “medical withdrawal” on your transcript if you were able to withdraw from the class. See if you can get her to just leave that out, altogether, or just put “Withdraw.” AP Physics B is fine, and no one will think you necessarily need to have taken Physics C.
I think it would be better for the GC to just put “illness” as a reason, and not “mental illness.” If she feels that’s not enough information, I’d ask her to go with something more specific, like “anxiety” or “depression” before I’d say “mental illness.” Depression can be situational and people don’t automatically think it’s going to be a chronic problem. When one says mental illness, all kinds of things run through one’s mind and some people do judge negatively, or think it’s not something one can recover from.</p>

<p>And don’t sweat the APs. You already have the important ones. I’d definitely skip AP Statistics- I think colleges see that as a “light” AP anyway. AP Eng. Lit is good, but if you can’t fit it in, just take regular or honors senior English and ace it. :slight_smile: Your GC should be able to help you take some kind of senior English and still fit in your make-up courses.
I think you’re going to do just fine. :-)</p>

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<p>@calmom, I actually felt quite confident for each of the AP exams, I am almost certain I passed all of them and felt I felt familiar enough with the material score at least a 4 on them. Of course I cannot be sure yet, but I don’t feel too anxious about not doing well on them. My other AP scores I feel similarly about, my only concern is that I have heard colleges do not value AP scores as much as the corresponding AP class grades? I’m not sure how true it is, however. Some insight would be great!</p>

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<p>5minutes, I think if you do get a 5 on the AP tests, and you can convince your school not to put the Ds and Fs on your transcript (maybe just put W’s?) because of that (some high schools do this), then I think you should seriously consider calmom’s advice about moving on without repeating. If they stay and impact your gpa, I think you’d be better off getting those grades off your transcript.</p>

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<p>@moonchild, thank you so much, that is very reassuring to hear! Your advice about specifying the mental illness is helpful, I didn’t think of that. One of the primary reasons I wanted to take AP Statistics was because I know the teacher relatively well, and was planning on asking her for a letter a recommendation (since all of my potential teachers I’m going to ask are all humanities-based). Do you think it’s OK to have 2 teacher recs from the same field? One teacher I TA for, and was in her English and Art History classes. Is it alright for my second rec to be from a history teacher, or a AP Government teacher? </p>

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<p>5minutes – although you don’t have to report AP results to colleges when you apply, there is an option to do so and I think that it’s definitely helpful to report 4’s and 5’s. </p>

<p>I think that if you were to sign up for courses where you already had a 4/5 AP Scores in the same subject --and those courses show up as “in progress” on your transcript --that raises more questions than it answers. College ad coms pretty much have eagle eyes for things that don’t look right on a transcript - so they would see right off the bat that there was something fishy about a kid with a 5 in APUSH who was taking AP US history senior year with a grade reflected as “in progress”. </p>

<p>Much better to be up front with the truth + an explanation than to try to hide something.</p>

<p>I think that either way that is a problem on your transcript – but that at least colleges will respect an explanation that you feel you have mastered the material already. At least if I were sitting in the admissions chair, I’d be more likely to take a chance on a kid who has demonstrated the ability to recover from a set back and move on, than one who seems to be taking an easy way out to try to clean up (and essentially cover up) past mistakes. It’s an easy way out because if you have already mastered a subject well enough to pass the exam, it would also probably be very easy to get a better grade in the course the 2nd time around. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that a problem on a transcript is not an automatic disqualifier. My daughter had some issues that we thought were huge – it didn’t have to do with grades, but rather with a pretty big deviation off of the path of “most challenging curriculum” – so we made it a point to confront the issue, explain it, and also make sure that the GC explained it. I honestly would not have thought my daughter would be competitive for any top university with that issue. In our case, it is the fact that my daughter only had 3 years of high school math, through 2nd year algebra, coupled with very mediocre SAT/ACT math scores. It turned out that several highly selective schools were willing to overlook the deficit --but I do think that it was important to be able to show that my d. was challenging herself in other ways. </p>

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<p>@calmom, thank you so much, I will talk over this with my GC again soon. I was initially not too keen on repeating courses I knew I did decently on for the corresponding AP exams already, and I would pretty much be repeating the Ds/Fs solely for my GPA. I also like what you said about it being an “easy way out”, which is something I didn’t think of but I can see adcoms viewing it in that light. </p>

<p>So for schools that have holistic admissions, would this actually not be such a huge setback? I am aware a lot of colleges’ application review process begins with looking at grades/test scores, then moving onto ECs, essays, etc. Will adcoms take the time to “look for an explanation” when they see the grade anomalies? </p>

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<p>It’s a setback no matter how you look at it, but probably the worst thing you could do would be try to bury it. Again – the colleges are going to see your transcript – if you have 3 courses from your junior year that show up as “in progress” that is going to stick out like a huge red flag. So if you did repeat the course – I think you would still want to disclose and explain the circumstances, including the poor grades – because the ad coms at selective schools aren’t going to to give you the benefit of the doubt unless you supply them with a good reason.</p>

<p>I mean - what is your transcript going to look like if you repeat those course? Will the As you got in spring semester still be there – or are 3 year-long AP courses going to disappear into “in progress” land? Will they appear to be 11th grade classes that are still uncompleted in the fall of your senior year? Or will they disappear from your 11th grade course list, leaving the impression that you took an extremely light course load in the year when colleges really expect to see a strong course load?</p>

<p>Retake those courses if there is an educational benefit in doing so. If you get a score of 2 on the AP Biology exam - that’s a good sign that maybe you should retake the course, especially if you are planning on a STEM major. </p>

<p>Maybe if, going forward, you act on the assumption that one way or another, you are going to tell the colleges about the 2 F’s and 1 D during fall semester – the answer will be more clear to you. Not telling them is the worst option at all – again, their job requires them to review thousands of high school transcripts every single year. They’ve got a pretty good idea of what a transcript ought to look like by now.</p>

<p>And yes, they will read the explanation. Whether they will give you favorable consideration is hard to say – it depends on the overall circumstances. But I think that in the end, the ad coms probably prefer students with some sort of blemishes or dings on the record – at least it makes those applicants more memorable in their mind, than the many they see with cookie-cutter near perfect and blindingly similar transcripts, GPA’s, and EC’s. At least you have a story to tell. </p>

<p>But do focus much more on fit than prestige in you college search – and by “fit” I don’t just mean the college where you think you will fit in best. I mean the colleges that are most likely to appreciate that considerably unique EC you have been doing for 11 years. You are going to sell yourself to your colleges based on that EC! Your goal is to make them want you so much for the sake of that EC that they are going to want to find a good reason to cut you some slack because of one bad semester – and then you are going to make very sure that your application gives you the reason they are looking for.</p>

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<p>In reading through your past posts, it seems as if you have never seen a MH practitioner. All diagnosing and counseling was done by your GC. ? But a medical doctor wrote a note for your withdrawals?<br>
You appear to have taken AP courses since freshman year. What were your AP scores in those exams?
I love your EC – lots of fun to watch at the Olympics! :slight_smile: </p>

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<p>As a general rule, I don’t think the schools need to know about mental illness. That’s private. </p>

<p>I think you can mention “medical issues”, but that could be anything from mental illness, to cancer diagnosis and treatment, to a concussion from school sports. The details are private. </p>

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<p>If you make 4 or 5’s on the AP exams, don’t retake them. Use “medical issues” (as RockerDad said) to explain your semester (from which you obviously rebounded). Do not use mental illness, depression or anxiety as a reason.</p>