sundialing

If an immediate family member fell ill during your undergrad (such as being diagnosed with a life threatening illness) would this be considered an 'extenuating circumstance' that you can mention in your application to grad schools/pharm schools in the cover letter or additional info section? Or is it not considered one? Because I've read that medical EMERGENCIES can be mentioned but I'm not sure what constitutes as an "emergency," although I feel like it was pretty serious (e.g. long term hospitalization).

Thanks.

Bass51az

You walk a very this line here and you have to ask yourself this: "Why am I mentioning this?"

Personally, I touched on some of the extraneous things that happened to me in my undergrad but that was neither the focus of my personal statement nor were they excuses for a poor academic transcript. I was able to show that it made me a tougher nut to crack, so to speak, more mature, and increase my drive to make my life mean something - one reason that I'm doing medical research right now.

So the question remains, was this something that shaped you, or is it a distraction that you want to use as an excuse? Forgive me if any of these questions seem unsympathetic; these are my personal feelings after suffering through significant loss. I also want to emphasize this was how I went about touching on these events in my SOP - I am neither an adcom nor one that works closely with them.

zuzusplace

I intend to very briefly mention my mother's illness, because it was a reality that altered my undergrad career. As her primary care giver I did have one poor semester and then a break (once I'd learned I could not tackle both at the same time). Is it an excuse, no, do I think it helps to explain an errant semester and atypical breaks in an otherwise great transcript, yes. So I think it's all a matter of how you approach it and what you want them to take away from the discussion.