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Hey guys,
This is my gpa addendum and I was wondering if anyone would like to give some feedback? Thank you so much.

A little before my freshman year at Indiana University, my close friend Chris Chung passed away due to germ cell cancer. The trauma of the loss resulted in an overexertion on my mental health and led to a poor performance in some of my classes. Right before my junior year, my father suffered a fulminant brain aneurysm. He was immediately put into surgery and left him in a state that did not allow him to care for the family. During this time, I drove over 200 miles during the weekends back to Chicago in order to be at the hospital proceedings and take care of my family. Consequently, I performed poorly in my organic chemistry class due to my poor mental and emotional health. During the early spring semester of my junior year, my childhood church friend Joseph Yoon committed suicide. Although it was emotionally draining, I had learned from the past hardships to persevere. My grades have improved and have remained in good standing for the rest of my college career.

I'm sorry OP. Hope things are better. Anyways, I wouldn't mention the last part about your childhood church friend. Don't label yourself as someone who consistently cracks under uncontrollable situations. Tighten it up and just take responsibility. Thats all you can do. Good luck!

BerkeleyBear wrote: I'm sorry OP. Hope things are better. Anyways, I wouldn't mention the last part about your childhood church friend. Don't label yourself as someone who consistently cracks under uncontrollable situations. Tighten it up and just take responsibility. Thats all you can do. Good luck!

+1

I'm sorry to see that you dealt with some intense issues over the years. On that note, I think you should condense your stories to one or two incidents (church friend would be a good one to take out) for the same reasons as BerkeleyBear stated. I would also add one sentence showing growth so it is clear these things were unique incidents that are not going to repeat themselves (in reference to the grades suffering from emotional trauma).

Thanks a lot guys, I really appreciate it. I'll take your advice!

To be frank, you sound like you are seeking sympathy in your addendum. Not sure that will come across as you intend.

You need to take ownership of your low grades, not give excuses for them (even though the ones you give are heart felt).

What if you face another hardship in law school? The adcomm would like to know if you will be able to overcome such challenges and still excel in law school.

Tell them why your grades are low, accept responsibility, then tell them what you did to make up for the low grades, and why in spite of future challenges, you will excel academically in law school. In other words, just writing a "Woe is me" addendum is not sufficient.

Good luck!!