Medical GPA Addendum Forum

[GeorgiaG]

Hi guys-

I know this question comes up a lot, but I'm unsure if I should write a GPA addendum. To be honest, a lot of reasons I see people submitting addenda for seem kind of dumb to me, and I'm worried that mine is too.

Early spring of my sophomore year (February?), I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. In addition to causing extreme fatigue (I was often sleeping 16+ hours a day, falling asleep in class, etc.), general malaise, and frequent infections, it also causes cognitive impairment. I began having trouble with word recall, retaining short-term memories, that sort of thing. I also lost nearly 30 pounds in the span of four months.

While I think it's pretty clear that this could have affected my academic performance, I do have a couple of concerns. First, my condition has a pretty gradual onset, so it's hard to say when exactly I first was affected. Looking back, I think I started getting sick towards the end of high school, but definitely noticed something was wrong with me spring of my freshman year. Does having 2 entire years of underperformance undermine my case? Second, I got a C+ my senior spring. Nothing crazy here, it was just a hard class and I was spread pretty thin.

It's also not the case that when I was sick, I was failing every class or on academic probation; I just got a lot of Bs that could have been As and a couple of Cs. My GPA, by semester:

Freshman Fall: ~3.2
Freshman Spring ~2.9
Sophomore Fall ~2.9
Sophomore Spring ~2.8
Junior Fall ~3.7
Junior Spring (abroad) ~3.75
Senior Fall ~3.65
Senior Spring ~3.45

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My cumulative LSAC GPA is probably around a 3.29 or so (UGPA is a 3.26 but doesn't count my semester abroad). I haven't taken the LSAT yet because I plan on staying at my job for a couple more years, but like everyone else, I'd like to target a T14. I'm not expecting a GPA addendum to move mountains, but I'd like to know if it could help put a T14 within reach. Any advice?