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Mentioning low GPA in personal statement?
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 8:08 pm
by 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?
Re: Mentioning low GPA in personal statement?
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 1:50 am
by xdskyline
bump - any opinions?
Re: Mentioning low GPA in personal statement?
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 9:39 am
by kenwash
xdskyline wrote: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.
Re: Mentioning low GPA in personal statement?
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 10:13 am
by 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.
Re: Mentioning low GPA in personal statement?
Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 8:07 pm
by NoDayButToday
.