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Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:37 pm
by WokeUpInACar
Basically I went to school for 3 years straight out of HS, and did terrible (~2.5 GPA with a ton of withdrawals) for no particularly compelling reason, and then came back to school 1.5 years ago and got >3.8 over a ton of credits and have my LSAC GPA up around 3.2. I touch on this upward trend and the reasons for it very briefly in my PS, and I was wondering if that would be sufficient, or whether an addendum would have any value here.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:51 pm
by rad lulz
Not if you were just fucking around or immature.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:52 pm
by kalvano
Your GPA is what it is. No addendum will help you outperform your numbers. If your PS touches on it, that's enough. No sense in beating it to death.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:51 pm
by stuckinthemiddle
I disagree with the above posters.
Could you remove mention of the upward trend from your PS and explain it, in depth, in an addendum? It sounds to me like you've had a lot of personal growth and can successfully demonstrate that the initial failure has led you to academic success. Don't make excuses. Just explain that you lacked drive or maturity back then, but have progressed immensely since then, as is shown by your more recent grades.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:12 pm
by BullShitWithBravado
stuckinthemiddle wrote:I disagree with the above posters.
Could you remove mention of the upward trend from your PS and explain it, in depth, in an addendum? It sounds to me like you've had a lot of personal growth and can successfully demonstrate that the initial failure has led you to academic success. Don't make excuses. Just explain that you lacked drive or maturity back then, but have progressed immensely since then, as is shown by your more recent grades.
Did you get those lower grades in objectively hard classes or classes that were not part of your major? Were you working while in school to support yourself? If that's the case then
maybe you could write a short addendum.
If you don't have a compelling reason why you got those grades and withdrew a bunch of times in the first place, it will probably be worse for you if you draw attention to it. While stuckinthemiddle's suggestions could work, it could also seriously backfire.
I actually had a low GPA my first 2 years of undergrad because I was working a lot and hated my major, which was in hard sciences. I ended up switching majors to something I actually enjoyed and got my grades up. I didn't write an addendum because I didn't want to draw attention to my lower grades at the beginning of UG, but I'm pretty sure the schools I applied to took my upward trend into consideration anyway.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:31 pm
by hume85
BullShitWithBravado wrote:stuckinthemiddle wrote:I disagree with the above posters.
Could you remove mention of the upward trend from your PS and explain it, in depth, in an addendum? It sounds to me like you've had a lot of personal growth and can successfully demonstrate that the initial failure has led you to academic success. Don't make excuses. Just explain that you lacked drive or maturity back then, but have progressed immensely since then, as is shown by your more recent grades.
Did you get those lower grades in objectively hard classes or classes that were not part of your major? Were you working while in school to support yourself? If that's the case then
maybe you could write a short addendum.
If you don't have a compelling reason why you got those grades and withdrew a bunch of times in the first place,
it will probably be worse for you if you draw attention to it. While stuckinthemiddle's suggestions could work, it could also seriously backfire.
I actually had a low GPA my first 2 years of undergrad because I was working a lot and hated my major, which was in hard sciences. I ended up switching majors to something I actually enjoyed and got my grades up. I didn't write an addendum because I didn't want to draw attention to my lower grades at the beginning of UG, but I'm pretty sure the schools I applied to took my upward trend into consideration anyway.
Adcomms are going to pay attention to his entire transcript whether he calls attention to it or not. It could backfire for other reasons, but not because he highlighted the shitty parts of his transcript that adcomms hadn't been scrutinizing.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:33 pm
by rad lulz
stuckinthemiddle wrote:I disagree with the above posters.
Could you remove mention of the upward trend from your PS and explain it, in depth, in an addendum? It sounds to me like you've had a lot of personal growth and can successfully demonstrate that the initial failure has led you to academic success. Don't make excuses. Just explain that you lacked drive or maturity back then, but have progressed immensely since then, as is shown by your more recent grades.
So many people used to be lazy/unmotivated/bad students when they were younger. No one gives a shit. Most everyone had their act together all 4 years. Don't write it. No one cares.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:46 pm
by Ti Malice
rad lulz wrote:stuckinthemiddle wrote:I disagree with the above posters.
Could you remove mention of the upward trend from your PS and explain it, in depth, in an addendum? It sounds to me like you've had a lot of personal growth and can successfully demonstrate that the initial failure has led you to academic success. Don't make excuses. Just explain that you lacked drive or maturity back then, but have progressed immensely since then, as is shown by your more recent grades.
So many people used to be lazy/unmotivated/bad students when they were younger. No one gives a shit. Most everyone had their act together all 4 years. Don't write it. No one cares.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:50 pm
by BullShitWithBravado
hume85 wrote:BullShitWithBravado wrote:stuckinthemiddle wrote:I disagree with the above posters.
Could you remove mention of the upward trend from your PS and explain it, in depth, in an addendum? It sounds to me like you've had a lot of personal growth and can successfully demonstrate that the initial failure has led you to academic success. Don't make excuses. Just explain that you lacked drive or maturity back then, but have progressed immensely since then, as is shown by your more recent grades.
Did you get those lower grades in objectively hard classes or classes that were not part of your major? Were you working while in school to support yourself? If that's the case then
maybe you could write a short addendum.
If you don't have a compelling reason why you got those grades and withdrew a bunch of times in the first place,
it will probably be worse for you if you draw attention to it. While stuckinthemiddle's suggestions could work, it could also seriously backfire.
I actually had a low GPA my first 2 years of undergrad because I was working a lot and hated my major, which was in hard sciences. I ended up switching majors to something I actually enjoyed and got my grades up. I didn't write an addendum because I didn't want to draw attention to my lower grades at the beginning of UG, but I'm pretty sure the schools I applied to took my upward trend into consideration anyway.
Adcomms are going to pay attention to his entire transcript whether he calls attention to it or not. It could backfire for other reasons, but not because he highlighted the shitty parts of his transcript that adcomms hadn't been scrutinizing.
Like I said, it the end result would depend what he says if he chooses address the low grades. If he was working 3 jobs to support himself during UG, then it could be a good idea to mention that to help explain why his grades are what they are. On the other hand, if he was just being immature and didn't feel like going to school, then it actually could backfire because at that point adcomms won't even be able to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had a compelling reason for getting those bad grades in the first place.
But yeah, unless you have a good reason, this:
rad lulz wrote:
So many people used to be lazy/unmotivated/bad students when they were younger. No one gives a shit. Most everyone had their act together all 4 years. Don't write it. No one cares.
Re: Upward trend after 4+ years out of school, GPA Addendum?
Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:51 pm
by BigZuck
If your reason was too much online poker or something I would not write an addendum. Just let the good grades speak for themselves, maybe briefly mention the upward trend in your PS if it's organic.
Basically what everyone else is saying.