GPA Addendum Forum

[gabby831]

Hi! Please critique this for me! I want to make sure it is written as concise as possible, and that my overall point gets across!

My undergraduate grade point average is not an accurate reflection of my academic abilities. The poor grades I received within my freshman and sophomore years were due to my inability to completely concentrate on academics because of personal issues I had with my father. After my parents divorce, my mother caused me to become completely estranged from my father for over nine years. This forced estrangement began to end during my first two years of college when I escaped the control of her household. The difficulty of integrating my father into my life was magnified because issues resulted between my mother and I. I was not able to focus as much as needed on the math and science courses I enrolled in, which are the type of courses that naturally demand an excessive amount of time and commitment from me. These were the only courses in which I received low grades, as I struggled to maintain and improve my grades in courses I had a natural affinity for. Over the summer of 2010, the process of my reunion with my father was completed, and I was able to confidently and entirely commit to my academic career. This is evident by my upper-division course selection and grade point average, which is presently a 3.46/4.00.



What Im trying to say (I guess you can let me know if I hit the mark?!) is that during my first two years of college, I had a lot of family issues that dragged my focus and attention away from school and the pursuit of a career. I had ended a 9-year forced estrangement from my father (which was due to my mother's craziness) and was dealing with a lot of arguing and freak outs from her as well as the issue of integrating the concept of a "dad" back into my life. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, so I was enrolled in a lot of math and science courses. I am beyond HORRIBLE at this type of subjects, and so I got D's and C's... causing my overall UGPA to be a 3.20. After things settled in my life I began to become focused and enrolled in courses that were more my 'style' (switched to criminology major leaving science/math/doctor ideas behind) and have since gotten all A's and B's. I will probably graduate with an upper-division GPA of 3.5-ish, which is pretty good because the UF crim department is the shit! Thanks for your time!!!

[happyshapy]

I'm not sure if highlighting the types of courses you did poorly on is a good idea or not.

It makes it seem like you just couldn't handle the science and math courses and then switched to an easy major and that's why you did well at the end. But then again if you didn't mention and they notice it, then it makes it seem like you're trying to hide something.

[CanadianWolf]

CONSIDER: Family difficulties affected my academic performance during my first two years of college. After that time, I learned to view matters in a more mature manner which resulted in a much higher GPA.

[gabby831]

Thank you!!! I felt the same way about mentioning the classes..its really obvious if you look on my transcripts that my only bad grades are science and math, so im going to take it out and make it shorter!

Thanks so much to both of you! I really appreciate it!