UCI - Question About Being Rescinded

<p>First off a little background about the situation.</p>

<p>After graduating from high school around 2 years ago, my left lung collapsed and I was in the hospital for about a month. I underwent surgery and was on the road to recovery. I took my first semester of college off so that I could fully recover from my surgery. The doctor notified me that I may still be at risk for collapses in the future and to be on the lookout for symptoms. Over the past two years I have had reoccurring symptoms (difficulty breathing, sharp pains), and have visited the doctor numerous times. However, the chest x-rays showed that my lung hadn’t collapsed and that it is a common thing to have happen after an operation like the one I went through. Sometimes, I would have really bad days where I would be unable to attend school. </p>

<p>On top of that, I have been experiencing high levels of anxiety and depression. I started seeing a psychiatrist at the beginning of my Spring semester of 2012. I was diagnosed with reoccurring depression, general anxiety disorder, dissociation disorder, mild post traumatic stress disorder, and mild obsessive compulsive disorder. I was prescribed to a plethora of medication, but none of them seemed to work. He continued to cycle me through several different types of medication. The symptoms I experienced were so bad, particularly with anxiety that I could not function in a social setting. I tried my best to attend class on a regular basis, but I could not handle being in that type of setting. I would have panic attacks, the world would seem like it was spinning, and I would feel as if I was almost in a dream-like state. Imagine living your life as if you were watching yourself in a movie from a third-point perspective. That’s how I live my life every day. All this stress caused me to withdraw from all of my Spring semester classes. After withdrawing from my classes, he decided to prescribe me to a very strong Benzodiazepine called Alprazolam, better known as Xanax. This actually helped me a great deal as it has been allowing me to function in a social setting, without experiencing panic attacks, etc etc. (I really wish he prescribed this to me earlier).</p>

<p>A few days ago I was admitted into UCI after being on the wait-list. I was ecstatic at first, but realized that my admission was already in jeopardy due to the aforementioned situation. Dropping my Spring semester classes put me at 50 units, 10 short of the transfer requirements, and I also was unable to complete my math requirement (was taking it Spring semester). I didn’t really think that I would be admitted into UCI, but my symptoms were so bad that I couldn’t attend school anyway. </p>

<p>I immediately messaged the admission counselor upon receiving the news of my admittance, and this was the response that I received. </p>

<p>"Thanks for notifying us of your situation. I’m
sorry to hear you had such a difficult semester.
I’m glad you’re taking care of your health and I
hope you continue to get better. </p>

<p>I completely understand that you had to drop your
Spring 2012 courses for medical reasons.
Unfortunately, because you dropped your Spring
2012 courses, you are deficient of two of your
admission conditions. </p>

<p>The first condition was that you had to complete
Psych 9A with a C grade or better by the end of
Spring 2012. The second condition was that you had
to complete 60 transferable semester units by the
end of Spring 2012. Without your Spring 2012
courses, you’re at 50.33 transferable semester
units (AP credit & El Camino credit). </p>

<p>I will have to forward your file to the admission
committee for further review. They will determine
whether your admission will be rescinded or not
after we receive your final college transcript. If
you want to fax me your medical documentations, I
will attach it to your file for the admission
committee to consider when determining your
admission status. Please fax to
949-824-2951-attn:Cindy Wu. </p>

<p>Continue to take good care of yourself. Feel free
to contact me you have any questions. "</p>

<p>I am terrified of the thought of being rescinded once again (was rescinded from UCR after high school due to a TEACHER’S mistake, even after going through the appeal process and explaining what happened). </p>

<p>I am currently enrolled in two summer courses and trying to get into a Statistics class (which seems to be impossible at the moment). </p>

<p>I have all the medical documentations and am faxing them to the counselor tomorrow. I was wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation and was still admitted. </p>

<p>Thanks in advanced!</p>

<p>While I am an MD I am not a psychiatrist and it has been a while since I graduated from medical school so what I know may be out of date, however, to the best of my knowledge Alprazolam is the only drug that the FDA has approved as safe and effective in the treatment of panic disorder. If there was an extended period of time between your diagnosis of panic disorder and the initiation of treatment with Alprazolam then you may want to inform UCI of that.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for your insight, I will definitely include that in my explanation. There was definitely a period of time where I was not given Alprazolam to treat my panic disorder / general anxiety disorder and this is when I withdrew from all my classes. I received the prescription Alprazolam after I withdrew my classes (definitely wish I received it before). My psychiatrist didn’t want me to start me off with Alprazolam because of it’s tendency to get people addicted both physiologically and mentally (as I am still a young adult). My life was pretty much hell, could only stay at home where I wasn’t around strangers all the time.</p>

<p>Sorry, you’re getting rescinded. Last year I was hospitalized due to a motorcycle accident which caused me to miss a good chunk of the end of my spring semester (including finals). Because of this, I never finished some classes which caused me to fail. I was initially accepted to UCI, UCSD, UCSB, and UCD but was rescinded since I fell below the unit requirement by 2 units. The classes I had been taking weren’t pre-reqs or anything, just courses to get me over 60 units.</p>

<p>Is it possible for you to take an online class through extension? I’m not sure if UCI has such a program, but UCB does. Basically, there are a bunch of classes that transfer for real credit in the UC system (including statistics) that you can sign up for at any time, and you have 6 months to complete them at your own pace. You must go to the campus to take a proctored final. At UCB one class is around $700 which IMO is worth it to ensure that you could attend UCI in the fall.</p>

<p>@Yano, you probably will develop a dependence on Alprazolam after extended treatment and may have to take it the rest of your life which is not optimal. However, when the only alternative is a complete inability to function in critical activities such as getting an education I do not know what else can be done. It sounds like your panic disorder is so disabling that I really do not see much difference between you being dependent on Alprazolam and a diabetic being dependent on insulin.</p>

<p>@BBQSauce04 Did you attempt to try to take the courses in the summer? I’m pretty sure I’m going to get rescinded, life sucks lol. But I guess I can take a semester off to focus on improving my health. </p>

<p>@Lemaitre1 I have heard many horror stories about Alprazolam. My psychiatrist was very reluctant on prescribing it to me, but decided to in the end. He is still currently assessing my symptoms and I have recently been prescribed to a “brain glue” type medication.</p>

<p>@Shannon13 I asked the counselor about taking summer courses and she told me that taking summer classes will not guarantee my admission. Nonetheless, I am still going to take them for what little hope I have left, lol. She told me to fax over all my medical documentations, etc and I’m currently in the process of gathering all my documentation. I literally have over 50+ pages of documentation, from 2009 until now lol.</p>