Self-study
Hi all,
I was just doing some prep for my essays for this fall when I discovered the “Has your college, university, graduate, or professional school course of study been interrupted for one or more terms for any reason?” question on most apps. My sophomore year of college I withdrew half way through fall semester and went home due to severe depression. I did not return to college until the following fall. Is this going to hurt me? I don’t want schools thinking I’ll drop out… It’s completely out of my control, but I wanted to ask. Thank you!
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2 comments
Hey @OliviaSullivan - Happy to help here! Quick FYI that I'm a member of the admissions consulting team and worked in higher ed admissions for a long time before joining the 7Sage team (just to let you know that I'm not a total rando!).
Quick version - no, a gap in your education is not going to hurt you. The "unless" here is "unless you don't explain it and act like nothing happened even though I can easily see that something happened when I look at your transcript." Issues arise for some folks in college and we ask this question on an app just to understand what happened and can incorporate that background into our evaluation of the person's transcript.
Have I personally admitted and enrolled applicants who had gaps in their college career? Yes.
For mental health reasons? Yes.
Was it a big deal that our admissions committee even took more than five seconds to discuss? Nope.
I hope that helps!