Explaining illness on college applications

LiteraryMom
Wed, 31 May 2017 20:24:28 +0000

Hello! I’m relatively new to College Confidential. I have a question I hope you all can help me with. My daughter is a rising junior in high school, and while she is normally an A student, she had a serious illness in her sophomore year that required surgery and hospitalization. She missed a lot of school as a result. Her teachers were accommodating, but even when she made up the work, her grades suffered to some extent because she missed so much. How can her one-semester lapse in grades be explained when she is applying to college? I’ve heard you should not mention negative subjects or make excuses for low grades, and it seems inappropriate to go into the grisly details of her health issues on a college application. But her illness and absences do constitute a legitimate reason for the anomaly in her otherwise strong GPA. I’d be grateful for advice and insights!