What should I do?

belugawhale666
Tue, 16 Feb 2016 20:56:58 +0000

TL;DR: ADHD kid struggles her first year but makes an awesome comeback and is actually really smart. Does she have a shot at Ivy Leagues?

I’m currently a junior at one of the most competitive public high schools in the nation. For us, highschool doesn’t start until sophomore year, so my freshman year grades aren’t factored into my GPA.

Growing up, my teachers knew I was a very bright student. I consistently performed well on standardized tests and exhibited a high intellectual maturity at a young age. However, I was forgetful, easily distracted, blurted out information, and had the attention span of a goldfish.
We know now that I fit the profile of a “twice exceptional” student, or a student with an extremely high intelligence and IQ but a learning disability that inhibits their performance in school. In my case, the learning disability is ADHD, and it’s not the “omg yeah i’m adhd too!” thing that everyone claims to have… no, it’s the kind where I have to take tests in different rooms, get outlines for notes in class, I get extra time on the ACT/SAT, and I’m heavily medicated.

My ADHD significantly hindered me from performing above average in school, which frustrated me and made me really sad. But since I was performing pretty well (decent, no red flags) in school, nobody saw any reason for concern. I just needed to “work harder” and “pay more attention”, but obviously I was working my butt off and trying extremely hard to pay attention. So we didn’t find this out until after the disaster that was my sophomore year happened.

Anyway, sophomore year rolls around and I was like “THIS IS MY YEAR! I’m going to get straight As and do super well and be amazing” except a heavy course load, 2 high school sports, debate, band (trumpet) speech, and quiz bowl kind of posed a challenge. Except I KNEW that I could do it. I knew I was smart enough to succeed in high level courses and still be able to do all these extracurriculars. But I wasn’t performing well at all. This is what my grades looked like:

AP European History: B+ first semester, B second semester
Ceramics: A
AP Psychology: B+
Honors Chemistry: B+, C-
English: B+, B
Precalculus: B, C+
Band: A, A
Spanish: A, B

To top it off, I wasn’t doing well in any of my extracurriculars. So around halfway through my first semester, I kind of spiraled out of control. I knew I had the potential to do well, but I was failing at everything. I was frustrated and confused and I had no idea what I was doing wrong. I’d leave every class feeling stupid because I couldn’t retain any information, and I’d get frustrated because I’d have to go home and re-teach myself everything that was already taught in class. Add to that the fact that I always ran out of time on tests, took hours to do homework that should have taken 15 minutes, and was consistently called out in class by my teachers for not paying attention/getting caught day dreaming. I felt like no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t succeed at all. I worked myself almost to death sophomore year which led to multitudes of mental problems…

I began self-harming, developed an eating disorder, hooked up with random guys, and was suicidal. Yeah, I know… things were pretty bad. Which kind of explains the plunge my grades took second semester. I didn’t sleep or eat, which had effects on my sports and other extracurriculars as well. I straight up wanted to die. I almost acted on these toxic thoughts the summer after sophomore year ended, and found myself at the hospital for intensive mental health treatment which lasted about halfway through my first semester of junior year.

It was at this point where I got the ADHD/twice exceptional diagnosis, which explains a lot of the struggles I faced and my grades sophomore year. After getting on a 504 plan and getting medication for anxiety, depression, and ADHD, things started looking up. I began to love myself and started to figure out how to do school and cope with my disability. My first semester grades for junior year were:

AP US History: B+
AP Physics: B
Band: A
English: A
AP Calculus BC: B+
Spanish: A

Of course, my improvement is gradual, but currently I have all As (it’s about halfway through second semester, and I added AP Comparative Government to the list). My SAT score is a 2310 and my ACT is a 34, but I took the ACT blind and I have another one coming up.

So my question is: Do I still have a shot at selective schools? Or did my rough sophomore year ruin that for me? Also, how much of this is okay to tell colleges? With the stigma behind mental health, I’m not sure if my story would scare them off or anything. However, it does provide an excuse for my low GPA sophomore year. Also, does ADHD make me look different to colleges?

Thank you so much, I know that was a lot, but I need answers!