Question for readers: What advice have you gotten on this subject? What have you decided to do? Please feel free to leave comments.
This past week I’ve gone to two grad school fairs. I used the opportunity to talk to admissions counselors and school representatives from schools that I’m interested in and ones that I’m not. This way, I could ask the same questions of many different people to see if there was a consensus, and also to try to see how people reacted to my talking about being mentally ill before talking to my target schools. Surprisingly, the reception I got was positive and the answers were consistent.
Gap in Resume Due to Mental Illness:
I was told not to worry about this. Many of the admissions people said that they’ve had other applicants reveal the same kind of information and how much I want to disclose, if I want to disclose at all, is up to me. What they’re concerned about is that whatever my problems were are past and dealt with, and that I can succeed in their program. I can disclose my mental illnesses as a way of talking about why I’m interested in the field or I can just say that I had personal issues that prevented me from working or volunteering. My disclosure would not count for or against me. It was clear though that focusing on it a lot in my application would not help me as it was not relevant to the application.
Trouble Getting References:
What I was told matched much of what I read online. References from academic sources are preferred as they want to make sure that you can succeed in their program. However, for social work, academic references do not have to be from social work professors. The references are to address my skills and abilities as a student, and thus can come from any department. If needed, I could use references from a work source, though of course I personally can’t do that. I guess my reference section will be weak. One school suggested that my high GPA might help balance things out.
Lack of Work Experience:
It seems that the schools readily accept a mix of students coming directly out of undergraduate with no work experience and those who have worked in the real world. The focus is on how good of a match the program is for you and what you can bring to the program. Those without work experience have energy and technological skills and are already in an academic mindset, while those coming with work experience have real world information to test against what is being covered in class. However, since I was talking to people in admissions, there was no way to tell how much lack of work experience would affect the quality of my internships.
