<p>I am a special needs student with a multitude of different disorders--ADD/ADHD, Generalized Anxiety disorder, several panic disorders, bipolar disorder, and I am somewhere on the autistic spectrum (like undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome). </p>
<p>I am currently attending Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts, and I am attempting to transfer to Tufts. I am a freshman in college, and I am currently in my second semester.</p>
<p>I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was five years old, but was not diagnosed with bipolar until it was virtually too late to save my high school record. I have struggled through school since even kindergarten, and I did horribly in high school. Junior year I stopped going to classes because I was having 3 to 5 panic attacks a day, mixed with psychotic episodes. I ended up getting hospitalized at the end of the year. My senior year, I was in and out of hospitals with psychosis (and other hospitals for a stomach problem that was making it difficult to digest food or eat at all), and I missed months of school, almost five. I was finally diagnosed with bipolar my senior year, and was put on 10 different medications. I recovered from psychosis, and while everyone said I couldn't graduate, I worked hard and took hours of tutoring every day, and managed to graduate on time.</p>
<p>I explained in my application essays that while almost all my classes my junior and senior years appear as "Pass" instead of getting a grade, I had actually taken the courses as independant studies with tutors outside of school. The classes show up as level I classes, but I mentioned that I had actually taken the course-load of AP classes. I also mentioned that I got A's on all the finals of the independant studies.</p>
<p>My personal record is clean--no arrests, no fines, nothing. My high school record, except for my grades, is also perfect--no suspensions or expellations. I am an avid artist, and am sending in a small portfolio of my work. I am a competitive figure skater, and I skate at least 2 hours a day. (all of this I mentioned in my essays)</p>
<p>One of my teachers' (teacher from college) recommendations stated that not only was I extremely determined and driven to learn, but I also volunteered to help out the other special needs students in the class by taking notes for them.</p>
<p>Most importantly, since I've been put on medication senior year, my ability to do work has skyrocketed. My first semester grades for my first year of college, this year, were A, A, A-, and B (I hate that acting teacher, grr). In her recommendation, my psych teacher wrote that I ended up having a grade of 103.5 in her class. My GPA is 3.7, and I have made dean's list.</p>
<p>My SAT scores are not to my liking. My score was 1380. I was not happy because I knew I could have done better, but I was still having such severe problems with panic that I had to be very doped up on valium (prescribed, of course) in order to be able just to keep from throwing up during the test. I mentioned this in my essay.</p>
<p>The reason I currently attend middlesex community college is because while other students were applying to college, I was in a psychiatric hospital. I was unable to apply to any college that had a strict date that the applications must be turned in by. Not only that, but with my grades, no school would accept me. I ended up needing to attend Middlesex, only being able to apply in June. That was the earliest I could do it. I also needed to make sure I was ready to do work, and prove to any colleges I wanted to apply to that I was capable of succeeding.</p>
<p>My high school GPA, since I had been able to do better in my freshman and sophomore year, was not as bad as it could have been-- 2.5. Not good, but it still wasn't a 0.4 or anything.</p>
<p>The major hitch I see in getting accepted is that I am only in my second semester of college, and I only have 1 semester of decent grades to show Tufts. I'm worried that they will want to see more work out of me before they would want to accept me.</p>
<p>Are my chances anywhere near decent?
Thank you.</p>
<p>--Monique</p>