Effects of Leave of Absence on IBD Recruiting?

Hi everyone. I am a second semester sophomore studying a STEM major at a top target school. I was participating in IBD recruiting and had confidence in my ability to land some interviews for junior summer 2020. However, due to medical and family reasons, I must take a leave of absence from this semester. I have concerns about the implications of this on my chances of breaking into IB.

The leave of absence means that I will either
(1) Have to make up this semester with an extra fall term after my class graduates in spring 2021.
(2) Or use my AP credits to make up for the lost semester and graduate on time.

I have enough financial aid such that the cost of the extra term would be negligible. On one hand, the extra fall term actually doesn't sound too horrible because that means another round of recruiting and career services that I could take advantage of. In that case, I would effectively be a sophomore this fall, summer 2020 would be my sophomore summer, and summer 2021 would actually be my junior summer. Alternatively, I could just graduate on time and hopefully land a junior summer 2020 SA during this ongoing recruiting cycle.

My questions are:
1) Would the gap in school attendance on my transcript negatively affect my chances of getting an interview? In addition, if I choose to go with option (2) and graduate on time, would the lack of spring 2019 courses on my transcript negatively affect my summer 2020 chances this recruiting cycle (even if I have a good explanation)?

2) Since the extra term isn't financially burdensome, could it actually be advantageous to delay my recruiting cycle? I started this cycle pretty late since I barely knew what IB was until last December, so a delay could beef up my chances.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate any help I can get with this stressful situation.

 

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