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After high school I spent a year in Thailand tutoring grade school children and absorbing the culture. Eventually I came to love the culture and even adopted their mannerisms and customs and was very distraught when I returned to the US. Is this a valid reasoning to explain the only two Cs on my transcript? Since this first semester, I have received all As.

Only if you want to distinguish your application in a negative sense. Essentially your argument would be that a year in Thailand made you less intelligent, although you later recovered.

Well, I don't think he would be arguing that his travels made him less intelligent - moreso that he had a difficult emotional transition after spending significant time abroad.

I don't think an addendum is necessary. The way you're phrasing it right now sounds excuse-y. Besides, why have an addendum? If you continue on the path you're on, you're looking at a 3.9+ gpa, right? That sounds pretty stellar to me.

ONE year outside the US caused you to be so "culture shocked" that you were so unbearably distraught that you couldn't focus on your school work and got two Cs? I'm not going to lie, it made me lol a little. Don't do it.

Edit: I actually think you'd be better off writing about this experience in your personal statement. However, I wouldn't phrase it as "reverse culture shock" because what you experienced couldn't possibly be even close to the culture shock that people who spend years in another country or have never been to the US before experience upon attending college here. Maybe just talk about how it caused you to view your own culture upon return (even that you experienced feeling disconnected from your own culture).

It also suggests that the OP may have difficulty dealing with stress & will resort to excuses that raise maturity issues. In short, don't do it. The "Cs" have done enough damage so don't compound the problem.

good advice, guys. thank you. after reading your comments, i realize that such an addendum could prove to hurt my application rather than help.

cinefile 17 wrote:ONE year outside the US caused you to be so "culture shocked" that you were so unbearably distraught that you couldn't focus on your school work and got two Cs? I'm not going to lie, it made me lol a little. Don't do it.

Edit: I actually think you'd be better off writing about this experience in your personal statement. However, I wouldn't phrase it as "reverse culture shock" because what you experienced couldn't possibly be even close to the culture shock that people who spend years in another country or have never been to the US before experience upon attending college here. Maybe just talk about how it caused you to view your own culture upon return (even that you experienced feeling disconnected from your own culture).

You have very clearly never spent any significant amount of time abroad.

OP, I agree that there's no need for the addendum. You ought to be just fine. I was in a similar situation and my addendum-free application didn't give me any problems.

This is SERIOUSLY likely to annoy someone on the admissions committee who is learned. You are describing a phenomenon called "going native" which is actually described in anthropology textbooks. Anthropologists now all try to avoid what you are describing because it's condescending/racist.

Reading the short sentence about it made me want to smack you upside the head, so a full addendum probably isn't a good idea.

testmachine45 wrote:This is SERIOUSLY likely to annoy someone on the admissions committee who is learned. You are describing a phenomenon called "going native" which is actually described in anthropology textbooks. Anthropologists now all try to avoid what you are describing because it's condescending/racist.

PC makes people stupider.