GPA Addendum Forum

[feistyone22]

For most of undergrad I had two majors, political science and statistics. However, the classes I had to take for statistics killed my GPA, and I eventually dropped the major. My overall GPA is 3.41, including all classes. However, my GPA without those awful statistics classes is much higher, 3.54. My major GPA for political science is 3.6. Should I write an addendum explaining this? Or does it just sound like a whiny excuse?

[rinkrat19]

1. 3.41 to 3.56 is really not THAT big of a difference.
2. "Hard" classes are a bad excuse. Plenty of people take the hard classes AND get good grades.

[feistyone22]

1. 3.41 to 3.56 is really not THAT big of a difference.
2. "Hard" classes are a bad excuse. Plenty of people take the hard classes AND get good grades.

Yeah thats fair. It wasn't so much that they were "hard" classes, just graded differently. In that field, my grades would get me into a great Ph.D program. The grades themselves are just treated differently, sort of like engineering.

Without the classes that were needed only for my major and no other requirements, there are still plenty of hard classes left in.

Bottom line you think dont say anything?

[rinkrat19]

1. 3.41 to 3.56 is really not THAT big of a difference.
2. "Hard" classes are a bad excuse. Plenty of people take the hard classes AND get good grades.

Yeah thats fair. It wasn't so much that they were "hard" classes, just graded differently. In that field, my grades would get me into a great Ph.D program. The grades themselves are just treated differently, sort of like engineering.

Without the classes that were needed only for my major and no other requirements, there are still plenty of hard classes left in.

Bottom line you think dont say anything?

Definitely don't say anything. It won't help in the slightest and could definitely hurt you.

[bp shinners]

It wasn't so much that they were "hard" classes, just graded differently. In that field, my grades would get me into a great Ph.D program. The grades themselves are just treated differently, sort of like engineering.

Talk to a professor in the department with whom you have a good relationship. Ask them for a Letter of Rec, and see if they'll mention the difficulty of the course and how tough the curve is (with specifics, if possible). Profit.

For posterity, if you have a major/school with a difficult curve, the best (and, really, only) place to get that info into your application is through a LoR.

[feistyone22]

Thanks. I decided to just leave it be. I took the classes, I can stand behind them. If they see that my less awesome grades are in really high level math classes, great. If not, so be it. I appreciate the advice!