Actually that’s been my D’s issue and a common characteristic of high achieving/gifted students with “hidden” disabilities - they often mask their struggles. Her Chem teacher had to fill out a teacher survey related to her disability and literally said that she didn’t see any problems at all. So I don’t think her teacher could speak to her ability to overcome difficulty just from observing her…that being said, D is likely going to mention her “health” struggles in her brag sheet when she asks for recs. And like you said, we will try to point out other strengths for her teacher to reference. It sounds like you would suggest asking the 11th grade Chem teacher. I appreciate your teacher perspective in this discussion.
I guess I wasn’t thinking we needed to provide excuses for her performance, but more for why the rigor of her classes and EC involvement changed when it was at such a high level before. Or do you mean we don’t even need to explain that she pulled back in those areas?
Thank you for saying this. I’ve read that it’s better from a scholarship standpoint to apply for college Senior year and then ask for a gap year, rather than take a gap year and apply…which is my main reason to at least try the college app process now. But we could decide tomorrow that it’s just too much. This is my struggle, bc I don’t where she’ll be a year from now, but I feel like we need to try to plan for that now.