Should I put this in my UC essays?

College Essays
1

I’m currently a junior and in my sophomore year I did pretty well, while taking the hardest courses possible. I finished sophomore year with a 4.17 weighted and 3.86 unweighted. So, when i signed up for classes last year, I though I could handle 5 weighted classes and I was aiming for a top school.
Midway through junior year, I decided that my health was more important than my grades and I started to do poorly. I can’t really handle the course load because I’m taking some of the hardest classes at my school(AP Lang, AP Chem). I finished last semester with a 4.17 weighted and 3.33 unweighted and I might only improve to a 4.33 weighted and 3.5 unweighted this year. I didn’t realize this till now and I am no longer shooting for the top schools, but the schools that fit me. I would be able to/capable to get all As if I had taken maybe 3 or 4 weighted and not taken the some of the hardest classes offered at my school.
Should I talk about this discovery for my UC essays? What would be the best way to explain this to the adcoms? Is it even worth explaining? Because I know people talk about something tragic that happened to explain their grades, but would my excuse even be worth mentioning?

Thanks

2

You don’t want to give the school your applying to the impression that you really wanted to go to a different, “better,” school but were forced to settle for them.

Your grades are fine. You don’t need to excuse them. More importantly, did you find out something about balance? About integrating the life you want to eventually lead with the one you’rd living right now? About what’s important to you outside of other people’s expectations? For instance, did you actually enjoy the material in school, once that weight was off?

That might be worth mentioning.