I commenced my bachelor of math 8 years ago and at the same time I was diagnosed to have cancer. Because of the treatment process and the emotional state that I was in, I only completed 3 subjects in the first year, 1 subject in the second year, no subjects in the third year and only 1 subject in the fourth year. By this time, I was feeling well, and I enrolled full time in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th year and I just graduated recently with a 4.0 GPA (out of 4.0 GPA). My academic transcript does not show my withdrawn subjects and it only shows my completed subjects.
So my first question is that should I tell in my application about this history? will it have any negative impact on my application? I am afraid that if I tell the admission committee that I suffered from cancer, they will reject me because they may think that if it comes back during my graduate studies, then the same thing could happen. Will it look really bad that I only completed very few subjects in the first four years?
How important is it for graduate admission committee that how long it took you to complete your undergraduate degree?