So the summer before freshman year I was diagnosed with lymphoma. I attended school as much as I could but later in the year I ended up relapsing and had to withdraw from school entirely. The next summer (before sophomore year) I went in for a bone marrow transplant and radiation and am now in remission. I started off the 10th grade fine but with a considerable amount of absences for obvious reasons. I still took honors an AP classes and performed well overall, though not what would be up to par in any other circumstance. In junior year my AP’s consisted of lang and comp, us gov, and capstone seminar. My final grades for first semester were all A’s but unfortunately, due to some residual health issues I was not able to perform the same in second semester (a couple B’s). 3.7 GPA currently. I took the ACT and got a 27 (barely studied tbh) but I am taking it again this September. Senior year I’ll be in ap psych, ap lit, ap capstone research, ap macro, Spanish 3, and acc pre calc. In addition to that I also fence and am the captain of my team for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I’ve also been working part time (full time summers) since junior year. I should add I received all my treatment at the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital through the University of Michigan health system, thus my dream of attending U of M. Sorry for the rushed question, I’m just curious how my circumstances will affect my application? Not asking if they’ll accept me just because I had cancer, but does my medical history give a reasonable explanation for my academic record not being up to traditional U of M standards?
It sounds like your story will surely enhance your application. Here is UofM’s guide to how they admit students: http://admissions.umich.edu/assets/docs/template-rating-sheet.pdf
There’s a special circumstances section
Michigan has a holistic admissions process, which means they will consider everything you share with them. A serious medical condition will be duly noted and factored into the decision.
While your GPA and ACT may not meet the average/median, your numbers are not unreasonable, so therefore they should consider the rest of your application. I have not been keeping up to date with what the statistics are, but keep in mind that for their published medians, half the student body did below those numbers. If you describe your situation, it should help your application.