I got denied from my dream school, Michigan, the yesterday. I am in-state and my grades are right about average of their acceptance rates. A lot of kids in my school applied and many got in with similar/worse stats than mine. I know they look at applicants holistically, which is why I think I was denied. My ECs are very weak and essentially non-existent besides a couple of things. As I stated in the special circumstances letter, my dad had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer, that required treatment from Freshmen to Junior year. Coincidentally, he went to University of Michigan hospitals. The reason I was affected was because my mom visited him every single day ( and I mean every single day). It was an hour trip each way, so she got home at 8 or 9 almost everyday, which left me home alone. This left me with any source of transportation besides the bus. I can’t be a part of an after school club if I have no way of getting home when it’s finished.
I’m not trying to make the reader feel pity for me, but that was just the situation I was in. I didn’t let my father’s medical condition stop me from trying in school, and I pushed myself my mom was too busy taking care of my dad. Even when my dad was having everything from mini-strokes at midnight and having to call 9-11 for an ambulance to multiple near-death experiences where doctors told us that he wasn’t going to live past the week, I still continued to raise my grades. After he died during the first week of Junior year, I continued to get high grades and achieved a 3.9 GPA during that entire year.
Now I am not trying to beg for pity, and I certainly didn’t do that in my letter. I simply stated the facts that I had to take on many responsibilities at home instead of doing things outside of school during the time my father was in the hospital. This is the official letter:
" My father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a form of cancer, around 9 years ago. His procedures have been off and on. During my Freshmen year in high school, he began chemotherapy for an upcoming procedure that involved a cell transplant. Due to the fact that he had to have his immune system weakened, he was required to stay in the hospital for long periods of time, including a 4-month stretch. The hospital that he went to was C.S Mott Hospital in Ann Arbor. Since my dad owned a law firm that employed my mother, she was able to leave work at around 1 p.m every single day to visit him in the hospital. From my house, the hospital is around 1 hour away. Because of the very long drives, she would not get home until 7 at the earliest, and 10 at the latest. Since my sister had already left for college just prior to his chemo, I was all alone at the house. This lasted until my Junior year. While I was all on my own, I had numerous responsibilities. I had manage my life and my grades all on my own. There was nobody telling me to do my homework, study for a test, or to get after me when my grades were bad but myself. Even when my father returned home, I still had to take on many responsibilities because my mother had to attend to the needs of my father. I believe that this had an impact on school for me. Since my mom was either at the hospital all day or attending to my father, I was not able to participate in extracurricular activities at my school since I had no way of getting to and from school without a bus. I would’ve liked to do some extracurricular activities such as basketball and volunteer work in Detroit, but since I had no way of transportation, I wasn’t able to do it. Also, since I was not able to see my father at all until the weekends, my mother would sometimes pull me out of school during the week to see him. This resulted in many absences and being behind in my classes.
My father had multiple close-calls with death, including one time when his heart stopped beating and he needed to be revived. There were a couple of instances where the doctor told my mother that he would not live through the week. My father was able to survive many setbacks until September 6th, 2013 when he died."