Medical Leave in Rec. Letter

[jeenyus]

Hi everyone,

Wondering if you could provide any input on my situation.

I am applying to doctoral programs for next year after finsihing up my MA. One of my references is (obviously) my supervisor. I am worried that their letter might send off red flags to adcoms and here's why:

During my first year I had a medical leave (which was documented and accounted for) requiring me to retake two courses and withdraw from one. Anyways, I aced the courses when I retook them and the final grade for that course doesn't count towards my GPA. I asked my supervisor how and if I should explain my transcripts because the withdrawals and low grade for the course I retook seem odd unless the medical leave is explained.

We talked about this, then the issue of the rec. letter came up and how they would address my medical leave (FYI I didn't ask about the letter supervisor brought it up). Supervisor said that in order to address my medical leave and their experience supervising me, they had to talk about my medical issues/leave in my letter. They also said that they would inform the committee in my letter that I would require a particular kind of supervision, as in a supervisor who would be willing to be more invovled with me because my health issues are ongoing and might pose a problem in the future. Keyword being *might* because right now everything is under control. But I understand that I can't be certain how things will be in the next few years. I am sort of upset over this. Does this belong in a rec. letter? Or am I overreacting? Please be honest.

And most importantly, Is this going to send out a red flag to the adcoms?

Edited January 10, 2012 by jeenyus

[OnceAndFutureGrad]

I'm sorry you're dealing with this situation. But it sounds as if you have the best opportunities available to you now, particularly as your supervisor is still willing to write you a LoR. Yes, some grad programs may be hesitant to accept you with this problem in hand, but I think that most (and the best) will understand that you are a human with human issues, not an academic machine without fault. Would you be able to write about your experience working around the problem for your SoP? You certainly don't want it to overshadow your research interests and other important information, but acknowledging what happened and how you persevere in spite of it is tremendously potent.