DD ill with kidney infection just before exams--what should she do?

[Cuddleczar]

My 18 year old DD is doing the International Baccalaureate and starts her exams next week. But over Easter she went down with a kidney infection, has had three lots of antibiotics (last lot seem to be working, finally) and has been absolutely knocked out by it. Can't revise, has dragged herself to college some days but always comes back early because of exhaustion. She has spoken to college and they say if she can provide a medical certificate (I am going to check that out, I think it will be possible), she can defer her exams until November. But it's a scary option--all her friends going on to take their exams...she might feel well during the actual period of the exams and feel fraudulent (though she has lost so much time now that she is certain that if she did take them she will not achieve her offer, which is for medicine)...and if she does well in November, she worries that people will say she did better because she had the extra time to do more work. It is not really a problem for her to be forced into a gap year because if she got top grades, she was going to pull out of UCAS for this year and apply again next year to Cambridge.

Does anyone have any advice or reassurance please?

It doesn't matter what her friends say, she has to live with these grades for the rest of her life, so if she can defer and it won't cause a problem, grab it with both hands.

If you see your GP they can write you a medical certificate on the spot. It will say illness, when and how long, etc.

I had two in my final year: Chickenpox followed by glandular fever.

I think the teachers may need to say what grades they expect her to get when they send it in (with back up evidence) so they may need some class work. Or they may only look at medical certificates if they're on the boundaries.

Get the medical certificate and sit the exams when better.

I agree with deferring until November. The IB exams are very onerous even when you are in the best of health and fully prepared.
My ds fell ill in the middle of doing his IB final exams and ended up taking the last one whilst actually in hospital and got very little in the way of recognition of how his illness affected his performance by the IB markers so I would say definitely defer if possible.

Thank you all for your advice. We got the medical certificate sorted out this morning, there was no problem about that. Still trying to check though that doing the exams as a resit won't look bad on her academic record (even though she won't actually sit any of them). Probably we are going to go for the November option, scary as it seems...

People do get ill, I can't think that sitting exams later than usual would look bad. (I have no knowledge about admissions, though.) Will her current offers still stand or does she need to approach the unis again?

If your dd recovers fully in the near future, perhaps she could spend the intervening time doing some work or voluntary work in a relevant setting until November. I should think that would help with university admission and would be useful to her in deciding whether she does want to do medicine and in giving her a head start in understanding more about the possible careers she could pursue.

Defer. So long as she has a medical certificate it will not make a jot difference.
But ignoring her exams! If your DD has been ill almost 4 weeks with a kidney infection that is a serious illness. Exams will put her under more stress which will be to the detriment of her health.I do not want to scare you, but from my own family's experiences, you should not underestimate how serious kidney infection and its complications can be.

Latest thing is that college is putting her under pressure to try to do at least some of the exams. She doesn't feel fully well yet and feels that even that would be risking the possibility of poorer-than-deserved grades going on her record. Plus, she does feel that she ought to be able to do all the exams in one go, just like everyone else. College have said that if she resits them all in November, 1) this is very unusual (though they have not said it is against the rules; 2) she will be "out of the loop" ie have no teacher support and will not be a member of college. She is not greatly worried about this as she is highly self-motivated and in any case the (few) teachers at college whom she rates will, she knows, be prepared to mark the occasional practice essay for her. (The ones that aren't good teachers and wouldn't help her are so poor that the absence of their support wouldn't matter at all!) Ryanboy, I know you said you don't want to scare us, but you have! I think we are on top of it right now--blood test and ultrasound scan booked.