A very strange circumstance that requires some explaining, and on which I’m having trouble finding advice. I graduated high school an ideal candidate for college: 4.2 GPA, 34 ACT, 1500 SAT, highly involved in extracurricular activities and volunteer work, president of study body, glowing letters of recommendation from school principal and faculty, etc. Despite my exemplary record, late junior year saw me start to feel increasingly unmotivated, constantly exhausted, and, frankly, quite depressed. It was a struggle to cross the finish line at the pace I set early in life and had maintained with ease to that point. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t focus or even manage to care about class; there was no shift in my mindset or goals, so my family and I chalked it up to senioritis, something that’d surely disappear when I could finally study a career that interested me.
I was accepted to my dream school and program, which I’d prefer to keep confidential as it makes me easily identifiable to my classmates and acquaintances, though I will say it is the #1 ranked school in the US for this major, and the program’s acceptance rate is reportedly ~1%. The first two years of class weren’t rigorous per se, but I struggled nonetheless. I was sleeping abundantly: at least 12 hours a day, and up to 15 when I had the time, which I often made by avoiding activities and friends. I had difficulty engaging in classes which would have fascinated my younger self, and my focus was out of whack, yet I managed to make it to junior year, this fall, with a 3.58 GPA.
(Somewhat) independent of my low mood and chronic exhaustion, I slowly lost passion and interest in my major. I spent my limited capacity for intellectual engagement reading and researching the work of prominent sociologists and critical theorists, and sometime this fall I decided that I would like to transfer majors to a humanities field. Concurrently, my excessive need for sleep was being denied by more demanding coursework, and I stumbled through an increasingly fatalistic series of depressive episodes that resulted in my withdrawal, which the university granted on health grounds.
I have since been diagnosed with a rare sleep disorder known as Idiopathic Hypersomnia, which is effectively a neurological state of chronic sedation and mental drunkenness, as well as a (slightly) more common disorder known as Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, which is an offset of the body’s internal clock by 4-5 hours. I’m undergoing treatment trials, and once I feel functional again, I intend to apply for transfer to some of the country’s top philosophy and sociology programs, ones to which (I believe) I would’ve been admitted as a freshman, but into which I doubt I could transfer with my unimpressive college record.
Is there any way of accounting for my disability and how it has affected my performance over the last few years? Do admissions counselors and universities care about such circumstances? Are there resources for someone like me?
Thank you in advance.