Application - Personal Situation

sora.eessora.ees Member
in General 24 karma
Hello 7sagers,

I'm asking for thoughtful comments/advice on my personal situation. This is causing me tons of anxiety and I haven't been able to study these days and I need to study, like really really need to. Any thoughtful comments are appreciated :)

I am 100% confident in my decision to attend law school. This means so much to me. I will be filling out the part of the application where it asks if you have some factor which warrants special consideration. I really don't want to fill this out but I have no choice since my gpa is poor and I have no stand-out academic, or any, achievements.

A brief description of my situation:
I've had poor health compared to my peers for as long as I could remember. I just got a proper diagnoses and started treatment less than a year ago. My condition is "serious" but controllable. To elaborate, it causes many uncomfortable and embarrassing symptoms (but they should improve :) and I have to follow a strict diet but I can otherwise live a "normal" life. I've also gone through very poor mental health because my symptoms are embarrassing and I was bullied most of my school years. I also had a facial dis figuration for a few years and unfortunately, that led to abuse from family members on top of being bullied at school.

My poor mental health and fatigue (symptom of my medical condition) made getting through university very difficult. Although my gpa is bad, I am proud of it - more so than I would be if I hadn't gone through that (referential phrasing :) and had a 4.0 gpa.

I'm Canadian and will be applying in Canada. I'm concerned this information could harm my application more than it could help. My thinking is, after all, a school should MUCH prefer a healthy applicant with good numbers, over me ("unhealthy" with mediocre numbers). In fact, I doubt if they give "special consideration" at all because they place so much value on good numbers (as they should). I'm also concerned they will doubt my ability to finish law school, and then, doubt my ability to be a lawyer...am I being silly? Although I haven't had a panic attack in a few years, I am having mini ones just with the thought of having to write this, not to mention the personal statement.

If you have a brilliant idea about how I can write a good personal statement, please share. Obviously, I need to write about my situation because this has been my life. I just started thinking of how to write it in my head and stopped because...the facts alone sound like a sob story! I don't want my personal statement to sound like a sob story. I'm especially anxious because I'm not a great writer to begin with.

If anyone can provide some insight on the validity of my concerns, I would be grateful. If anyone is in a similar situation, maybe we can help each other out?

- sora






Comments

  • BruiserWoodsBruiserWoods Member Inactive ⭐
    1706 karma
    First, let me start by saying that I empathize with your position greatly. I have had to overcome a ton of really astronomical obstacles to get to where I am. Mental health issues, neurodivergencies, learning disabilities, IBD, being raised in extreme poverty just to name a few. On TOP of the fact that I grew up queer in south Louisiana where i routinely had family members refer to me as an abomination, disgrace, fa**ot. I think the decision to disclose this type of personal information is an individual one.

    For me, personally, these things played such an instrumental role in not only my identity and who I am as a person, but also in why I made the decision to go to law school. I want to let law school admissions officers know exactly who and what they are getting, because this is who I am. THAT being said, I don't think it's necessary to disclose really specific details about the nature of your condition(s), but just that you had to overcome physical obstacles that your peers didn't face and it affected other aspects of your life negatively (such as your gpa and/or mental health status, etc.)

    Also, feel free to pm me if this is something you'd feel more comfortable talking about in private. <3

    Good luck
  • jdawg113jdawg113 Alum Inactive ⭐
    2654 karma
    @sora.ees said:
    am I being silly?
    absolutely not... I could not imagine being in your situation but I applaud your determination. Now I dont know how Canadian schools work, but I cant imagine theyre all that different. Schools allow the ability to write about these type of situation and it isnt so they can discriminate and reject you.
    I would not write this as a personal statement either. Personal statements are more to describe who you are and not to explain your gpa etc. Personally I would say to write it as a diversity statement and have a separate PS (though if you absolutely cant think of something as a PS I could see this as a PS but you would want to be careful as to not make it come off as an explanation for your gpa and such. Also you said a big part of your situation is that you only recently were diagnosed and are now getting it taken care of and have it under control to an extent so it isnt like you are telling them you have issues that are controlling you and could keep you from finishing, but more explaining you had a rough past.

    TL;DR - it shouldnt really matter, do it as a diversity statement rather than PS, they have no reason to hold it against you for explaining why you previously did poorly but have things more under control now
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