Taking an extra year for health reasons

[Innisfree]

Asking for a friend...

If a good student needs to take five years to complete high school because of mental or physical health issues, will that handicap them in admissions to competitive colleges? Will they need to discuss or explain the issues? If so, does that happen during the admission process, or only later in sorting out any accommodations?

[RootAnn]

I would say the key here is "competitive colleges." The safe answer is they need to call each one and ask how to handle it.

The more generic answer is to do a by-subject transcript and have the counselor letter address health issues during x year, but better now by senior year.

[Note that I am posting on this because often me answering a post that hasn't gotten any takers will encourage others who actually have a clue to post their answer.]

[Serenade]

Homeschooled?

If the student is homeschooled, and hasn't taken any official tests or classes that have to be reported, I'd just shift the high school dates.  We held my son back a year for various reasons, so his sophomore year ended up being his freshman year, etc.  He hadn't yet taken the ACT or SAT or dual-enrollment where he had an official class designation, so this was easy to do.

If the student is in a public high school, I have no suggestions.

[Innisfree]

Yes, homeschooled, and I think tests have been taken. Listing things by subject sounds doable, thanks.

[PeterPan]

You can list by subjects but some schools will still want dates. If you have a medical issue, then you have documentation. Thing is, the dates can go by year *completed* meaning you can still sorta make it look like 4 years. So like if she/he started algebra and took 2 years because of medical problems, you could just put the year completed. Was everything protracted or only a chunk in the middle? If you have a space in the middle where little is completed, you could just put completion years so you have 4 years but nothing marked during that gap year. 

No matter what, you have documentation. See what it looks like when you get everything written out. I would definitely keep track of when everything was completed, because you're probably going to need it at some point. That way it doesn't get muddled in your mind and is easy to put if you need to. And because you have documentation, I would present it in the way that is most favorable to your student and just put that note there on the transcript like gap year due to medical issues.

Oh, fwiw, I eval'd transcripts for a university, saw a fair number (thousands?) and didn't see that. It's not a super super common situation, which means to my mind nobody has the right to be uber picky. They just need their data that their school requires. If they want dates, they'll still want dates. If they want units to meet minimum entrance requirements, they still want those. But I would play with it, see where the completion dates fall, and see what would make for a tidy presentation. By year is most common but by subject is acceptable, yes. If the school wants dates and is picky about that, you'll still need them, which is why I was saying you don't necessarily need to HIDE it. You have documentation, so just make it clear, easy to tabulate.

[8filltheheart]

My dd did not have 5 yrs of high school, but she did have absolutely no ECs for a span of about 15 months due to serious health issues.  I explained in a strictly positive light (and emphasizing her strengths) that academics took all of her energy during that time and that she would go sit by the bay at dusk to remind herself about the vastness of eternity vs. her individual struggles.

She was accepted everywhere she applied and awarded extremely competitive merit (with kids who had mile long ECs.)