Mentioning low GPA in personal statement? Forum

[xdskyline]

One of the major themes of my essay is diversity of knowledge. I have a sentence explaining that I chose to minor in Bio as well as major in Poli because I valued the expertise in different fields, despite the harder Bio classes bringing down my GPA (which was a 3.2; my upper division major GPA was a 3.6). It's kind of a pseudo GPA addendum inserted into my PS, since I didn't think it was a good enough excuse to warrant attaching an actual addendum.

Does this statement help by putting a positive light on my GPA? Will it point out that my grades were decent in my major (I'm not sure my major GPA shows up on my transcript)? Or am I just shooting myself in the foot by bringing more attention to the fact that my GPA is shitty?

[xdskyline]

bump - any opinions?

[kenwash]

One of the major themes of my essay is diversity of knowledge. I have a sentence explaining that I chose to minor in Bio as well as major in Poli because I valued the expertise in different fields, despite the harder Bio classes bringing down my GPA (which was a 3.2; my upper division major GPA was a 3.6). It's kind of a pseudo GPA addendum inserted into my PS, since I didn't think it was a good enough excuse to warrant attaching an actual addendum.

Does this statement help by putting a positive light on my GPA? Will it point out that my grades were decent in my major (I'm not sure my major GPA shows up on my transcript)? Or am I just shooting myself in the foot by bringing more attention to the fact that my GPA is shitty?

If you're going to mention this, I think you can keep the part of valuing expertise in different fields, so you minored in Bio. But definitely take out any reference to the classes bringing down your GPA.

[Rotor]

Why would you bring up negative information in the one spot in an application you have creative control over? That's like starting a speech saying "I'm no good at public speaking."

Use it to shine or paper over your shortcomings. As ^ mentioned, you can express the diverse interests as a positive without dragging in the negative.

[NoDayButToday]

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