Apparently Unique Circumstances...

Blindwheel
Thu, 13 Sep 2012 06:46:47 +0000

Hi all,

Sorry for this-- I’m in a real weird situation and have spent hours and hours trying to find a forum with even a remotely similar topic to help me out, but I haven’t found one, so here goes my question…

I’m a student who had exemplary academics, International-calibre extracurriculars, stellar SAT scores, finished up at a feeder school and comes from an interesting personal story + URM background. I was very interested in going to Harvard up until the last year of my high school when I got really sick, totally disengaged from everything, and am basically in a situation where I’m on a gap year and will be retaking my IB exams this November.

Harvard will look at everything-- not just my retake IB exams, but my original ones as well. Would you say that having messed up my final year of high school and having to redo it-- even for a legitimate reason-- is enough to get completely ruled out for Harvard admission?

Essays and other things I haven’t started, but I will, and I’m confident that I’ll be able to work hard and churn out some good ones.

I’m just terrified that I’ve really just completely thrown away any chance at a good school (even beyond Harvard or another Ivy) because of this.