<p>So for all my life i've been a straight A student starting from kindergarten, and Freshman year I was a 94 avg kid taking rigorous courseload at a competitive high school, but then sophomore i suffered from an immune disorder, had over a dozen visits to the doctor and was on many antibiotics and prescriptions, it SEVERELY affected my performance in school, i still had a rigorous courseload because we choose our courses at the end of the previous year and i wasn't expecting to get sick. Anyways my average for sophomore year was a 78-80. It sucked. My ranked also suffered tremendously, from like a top 5-10% to 76/260 =/. I didn't fully get over it till the summer after, Junior year I was back to the regular 94 overall. And so far senior year i'm doin fine. Will this hurt my chances at NYU specifically Stern and otehr schools i'm applying to. My mom gave a note to my counselor to explain the sophomore year dip in her recommendation letter. My SAT and everything else and reccomendations are very good, essay excellent. Basically i would have like a 3.9 UW GPA but since i got the disorder, it brought it down to like a 3.5-3.7 if i'm lucky.</p>
<p>Cliffs-
Straight A kid all my life
Got incredibly sick soph year brought gpa/rank down alot from near 4.0 to 3.5-3.7
Have a note to explain sickness
Will it hurt my chances for NYU Stern among other competitive business schools, other things (SAT,recs,essay) being great to excellent?</p>
<p>Little long read but i appreciate the responses, thanks!</p>
<p>Talk about your sickness in your essay in a mature fashion. If you can show that your grades are on an upward trend now that you're feeling better, I doubt it'll be held against you.</p>
<p>I had something very similar happen to me as well (almost exactly, I became very sick my sophomore year). I explained my disorder in my college essay in a way that although it was rather sad, it wasn't a sob story, and my personality still managed to come through - I covered it in a unique way so that it didn't sound like I was writing about it to make excuses. My guidance counselor warned my continuously to make sure that although it's a sad story, that the ending has a little bit of light and hope to it.<br>
I applied to CAS and my GPA was still a little lower than yours, so I got into GSP. Honestly, if you write a beautiful and honest essay, and have solid SAT scores, I think you'd have a true chance of getting in.</p>
<p>Hmm do i really have to write an essay about my sickness? That part of my life is over with and i really don't know how to describe it other than constant illnesses. I wrote what i think is an excellent essay about a unique EC (started my own business ) but i wrote about communication and interaction of people rather than the pure business aspect. I'm sure it shows my personality through the language and hopefully helps me with Stern. Any more responses?</p>
<p>that part of your life MUST be explained somehow so that it doesn't look like you just slacked off for one year. I believe there's a specific section for that if you don't want to write your main essay on the topic (a specific section to briefly describe an illness/situation that hindered your grades).</p>
<p>Well yeah of course I described it in the tell anything that might have affected your academics part, and it's being explained in my counselors rec letter but I didn't think an essay was required on it.</p>
<p>Then talk about something else in your essay. I didn't mean to imply that you absolutely must address it in your personal statement. What I meant was that it must be addressed in writing by you somewhere in your application. Sorry about that.</p>