ADHD and Graduate School

[mska]

Hi everyone,

I am new here and happy to find a forum that has many individuals like myself. Short and simple, how do I convey to graduate schools that my first two years of school were lack luster due to ADHD? Would it be more harmful to convey this issue to them? After my diagnoses I have been killing it in every class I have been taking and on the road for another 4.0 this semester. With therapy and other sources outside of school I have come to a realization that I just perform a little differently and do things differently compared to my peers. I wish that I knew this way longer in my life, but it seems like it was simply just missed when I was younger. I am concerned that my graduate career and dreams are over due to a poor two years in college.

REPORT ABUSE

[ellings4]

Congratulations – it’s awesome that you’ve managed to turn your grades around so quickly after you got diagnosed.
I’m assuming that you are describing your undergraduate grades and are asking about applying to graduate schools?
I’m coming from a perspective of someone who spent many years in graduate school and has mentored undergrads who are applying (so, not from an admissions point of view).
I’d say that in your case (where you have such clear evidence that you have turned your grades around and are quite successfully managing your ADHD now) that this could be something that would be beneficial to mention in your application’s personal statement. There is still, of course, the danger of people with stereotypes that get in the way of their judgment. But in my experience in graduate school, you don’t want an advisor like that anyway. Being “out and proud” about ADHD in graduate school would have helped me a ton… hiding it gets in the way of everything. But that’s only one person’s thoughts, go with your gut.

REPORT ABUSE

[midwestgal73]

I’m new to this whole ADD/ADHD thing. Whenever I have read through the symptoms I’ve always thought – come on, isn’t that everybody, everyday? I have virtually every symptom and I thought everyone else did too, they were just better and overriding or controlling it. Flash foreword to now. I applied to graduate school and I’m freaking out that I won’t be able to complete the courses because I lose focus and drive so quickly. I was only able to succeed at college by getting into a program with short fast courses of 8-12 weeks. Graduate school is back to traditional semesters of 16+ weeks! I don’t think I can do it. It took me nearly 20 years to complete my bachelor’s degree. I heard something on the radio about getting diagnosed, getting on medication, and suddenly having success at school & life. I want that to be me. I finally set up an appointment to be diagnosed and hopefully treated. I just applied a week ago and I too wondered if on my application I should mention why I had horrible grades my first few years at University, including lots of 0’s because I couldn’t finish the semester, but without a diagnosis I didn’t want to. And I too wondered, how would it be received by the institution if I did put it down? I’d like to hear from someone who perhaps did mention it and found it beneficial or harmful.
Best of luck to you on grad school! Keep me updated on what you do and how it goes.

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts