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Don't write an addendum. Everyone has an excuse for their GPA, and adcomms don't like reading them.

For this situation don't do this. You are hurting your application by highlighting your lack of appreciation for subjects you don't care about.

The difference in GPA between your overall GPA and your major GPA isn't enough to warrant an addendum

Don't send this--it won't add to your application.

You really shouldn't send this:

My total undergraduate grade point average is 2.56 but the grade point average for my major is 2.7.

That's not a big difference, and certainly not enough to warrant an addendum highlighting this difference.

Even though that number is still very low, it demonstrates that the classes I was most passionate about were the classes where my performance was the highest.

So if you were forced to take classes in law school that you didn't like, you'd blow them off? That's not what you're saying, but that's how this sentence reads to me.

The low grades stemmed from a lack of maturity, not spending enough time studying due to employment, a rigorous course load, and a lack of appreciation of the importance of not only good grades, but also education in general.

You didn't have enough time for your grades because of your job, but you had enough time to join a fraternity? If you were working because you came from a low socioeconomic background, though, I'd mention that in your DS.

I hope you can look past my poor grades and use my significant life experiences, as well as my LSAT score, as a more accurate indicator of my academic abilities and commitment to the study of law.

I hope this doesn't come across as too harsh; I wish you the best of luck with your applications.

Don't do this.

The idea that your 2.7 degree gpa shows the passion you had for those courses is such a reach. Made me cringe.

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Addendums seem to be most useful when they address circumstances outside your control, like (to pick a couple of extremes) you/a loved one for whom you were the primary care-giver got cancer, or you lost your house/were living out of your car. What you write about describes an incredibly high percentage of students when they go to college.

I guess my main comment really is that there isn't anything in your addendum that adcomms can't figure out from looking at your transcript (which will show the all the classes you took) and resume (which should show your work experience and college extracurriculars).

I get basically wanting to say "I realize these grades aren't good" and if you really feel you have to do so, a couple of specific things: There's nothing about changing majors that leads specifically to bad grades - more time in school, maybe, but not bad grades (what you probably mean is you got bad grades in one major and so changed to one you were better at?) - so I wouldn't say that changing your major twice adversely affected your grades. And humanities majors (which your adcomms may have been) can get sort of peeved when STEM major people imply that if they hadn't been STEM majors, they'd have got much better grades. So maybe talk about a heavy course load (if it was), but I wouldn't make a point about it being STEM (again, that will be clear from your transcript; if the adcomm agrees with you that this is harder, then they'll see that, but if they don't, you won't have annoyed them by implying that). I would think the most relevant part of this would be talking about how much you worked/what kind of extracurricular responsibilities you had (but keep in mind that if you didn't have an unusually heavy work/ECs schedule this isn't going to help you at all. Maybe only if you talk about why you prioritized those things over schoolwork).

And I agree that there is absolutely no point at all in referencing the difference between the 2.56 and the 2.7. They're basically the same grade.

(scooped by others, but oh well)