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Some of this could be worked into your personal statement. Some of it might warrant a short addendum. You also might consider using your letters of recommendation to address some of this. If you are on very good terms with your professors, then I suggest discussing your application as a whole with them before asking them to write the letter. The low GPA will most likely raise doubts about your intellectual/academic qualifications or your work ethic. Professors are in a good position to speak to both of these. I hope this helps.

Do not write a GPA addendum. Everyone's GPA is based on outside circumstances. If we all studied hard for 4 years and lived perfect lives, we'd all have 3.9 GPA's. Life causes GPA's to go down, but the life experience is a good thing! Your 3.6 is what it is --very good, but not excellent.

I agree with the above. Incorporate "some" of this into a personal statement. The LOR is a good idea, but I doubt you'll have enough time to work with your professor on that. If all of this caused you to miss a year of school, then you can create that "out of school" addendum, which most schools require. To write an addendum saying you should be at say, a 3.8, and not a 3.6 seems a bit superficial.

WayBryson wrote:Some of this could be worked into your personal statement. Some of it might warrant a short addendum. You also might consider using your letters of recommendation to address some of this. If you are on very good terms with your professors, then I suggest discussing your application as a whole with them before asking them to write the letter. The low GPA will most likely raise doubts about your intellectual/academic qualifications or your work ethic. Professors are in a good position to speak to both of these. I hope this helps.

This!

I'll be the voice of dissent. This information should not go into your personal statement, unless they are formative events in your life and you want to explain them in a way of explaining you and your passion to pursue study in law.

I think it may warrant an addendum if these semesters were markedly lower than the rest of your semesters.

Now focus on your LSAT. If you crush it, your uGPA isn't low enough to make a huge difference. You should be taking it this June.

I agree with the above advice on crushing the LSAT. I'd also like to parrot the advice that this shouldn't go into the personal statement unless it is formative or otherwise works into the narrative you construct. Ultimately, I think you need to look at an application holistically and use the format given to convey the information you want. Addenda are good for plugging holes. The fewer holes you have after the rest of your application is complete, the better. You might find the following link helpful as well:

http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/admissi ... ether.aspx

This comes from Yale's admission blog, which I highly recommend reading through even if you don't plan on applying there. This one has a panel interview with the deans of admission from several schools. Only about 1/4 of the interview is on this page, but there are links to the rest of it, which is found on the other dean's respective blogs. Best of luck to you.

Agree with TommyK.

Thanks for all the advice! The Yale blog is really helpful - thanks for providing the link. I'll definitely focus on the LSAT for now. I've still got this semester and summer classes before my GPA is set in stone, so hopefully that will help a bit. I'll definitely keep all of these comments in mind