addendum Forum

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scgirl

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addendum

Post by scgirl » Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:53 pm

Would this be an appropriate addendum? Thanks!

The beginning of my college career was severely disrupted due to the prolonged illness and death of two people closest to me – my grandfather and my uncle. My father’s parents died before I was born so my Uncle ***** took the place of my grandparents. He was one of the most special people in my life. He fell ill in 2006. I spent a great deal of time at the hospital with him and his death affected me greatly. My mother’s father, my Papa, died in early 2007. He suffered from a heart disease. During the last few months of his life I spent a great deal of time at his home in Coredesville helping to tend to him during his last days. His home was located approximately 2 ½ hours from my university. I worked and attended school while driving back and forth this distance every day for quite some time. This took place during the Fall 2006/ Spring 2007 school semester. This affected my grades, especially during the spring semester when I carried only three classes due to my extreme schedule outside of school.

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Marionberry

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Re: addendum

Post by Marionberry » Sun Sep 05, 2010 5:04 pm

You're one the right track, but here are a couple suggestions I would make:

1) Specifically mention your grades during the period that your academic performance was compromised, and compare it to your grade during the rest of your UG career, which are presumably better. The main purpose of an addendum like this is to effectively explain why your cumulative GPA is not an accurate representation of your academic ability, due to a period of bad performance which needs to be understood in context.
Something along the lines of "When my grandfather was sick, my gpa was x.xx. The average GPA of all other semesters was x.xx"

2)It is kind of sentimental at points. I think that this is not ordinarily the tone of addenda, and that they are usually more factual and dry. I may be wrong about this one, so someone feel free to jump in and correct me if I'm wrong.

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