Thanks so much for your input, Annie! I did rewrite the fragment and the section a little bit.
I am in the humanities.
This isn't for school (yet), but for a scholarship with an ambassadorial type of purpose. And I take to heart your advice about showing them I'm ready to learn ... the good thing is that the whole theme of my essay is about precisely that! (It unfortunately didn't come through too well in that tiny snippet I posted ... I can't post the whole thing for privacy reasons, of course.)

I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one, Annie. I know grad school and scholarships like this are very competitive, but my qualifications are stellar. My epilepsy is not something I hide, not at all. On the contrary -- I want people to know that people with epilepsy can do whatever the heck they want to do. And I want to ensure that my supervisors are okay with that, have the brains to realize that my qualifications trump my seizures by far, and they're willing to get over their fears of a medical condition to have me on their team.
That said, I completely understand your point of view and know I'm taking a huge risk by disclosing so early. And as of yet, I haven't been as burned by disclosure as some others on the board. But for me, the freedom of early disclosure will allow me to start grad school with a lower stress level and enable me to look forward to learning, not to thinking about how and when to come out to my supervisors.

What do you think? I value your opinion and am so glad to be back on the boards!!

If you put a break such as "--" or "..." between the first and second
words you no longer have a fragment.

This conveys what I presume is the original intent.

Hi Strawdog,
I went to college in the early 80's and my epilepsy was a great cause of concern for the school. At that point I don't think I would have let any graduate program know about it. I'd ask some kind of academic advisor at your school who is familiar with the program you are applying to. Maybe they would have better insight than we would as to what would improve your chances. I can understand what you wrote completely. I would see how it goes over with people who haven't lived it. I hope you get it! Keep us posted.
mercy

i am thinking, i am thinking.

you say you have had E since 13 in your signature and that you were diagnosed 15 in the essay. must have been a strange two years.

before we get off into details here, i think the basic question you need to answer is: Why you? say a couple of thousand people apply for this scholarship. why are you better than them? what do you bring to the school? how will you honor the school? how will you honor the scholarship? what have you done so far that makes you more attractive than the others? what makes you stand out?

obviously one of the answers is your epilepsy, so you want to spin it so that it is a positive thing rather than a negative thing.

my method is to be completely upfront person to person and invisible to red tape. i try to stay out of the system as much as possible and rely on the fact that most people are really decent and helpful. doesn't always work, but mostly. since i always have quite lurid eegs i don't need to worry about diagnoses, but if necessary for red tape i can just shove an eeg report at them.

whatever you do i know that you will bring some excellent rational thinking and positive kindness and helpfulness to it.

i am still thinking. let me sleep on it.

i agree with pam, life is to short to not do all that you want to do...

Have you studied the different cultural and social ramifications of epilepsy in different countries? (ambassadorial context)

Just a suggestion

Hanna from Paris