GPA Addendum for outlier semester? Forum

[stinl]

Hello,

A school I am applying to is requesting an explanation of any semester grades that were significantly different than others. I am hoping for advice on whether my situation would be a reasonable GPA addendum topic, or just something annoying for an admissions team to read.

The semester in question was a semester GPA was .5 lower than my GPA at graduation. All five semesters after were quite solid GPA-wise.

The fall of my sophomore year was my first semester in a new major. I was determined to graduate within four years, and had to heavily load my courses. I was one credit away from needing overload approval. In order to graduate on time, my advisor approved me to take upper division courses in my new major out of sequence. Two of these UD classes had pre-requisites in terms of both specific courses completed as well as total number of hours within the department. Taking a near-maximum hour load, coupled with taking my new major's classes without the foundational courses made for an extremely challenging semester. I passed all of my classes, but the GPA was significantly lower than any semester after. University transcript shows how I excelled in the department beyond this initial semester.

Does this topic have legs or is it over-kill? I don't anticipate sending it to schools where I'm already GPA median, but rather for my reach schools where I am below median GPA.

Thanks for taking the time.

[QContinuum]

I would not do it. I would only recommend a GPA addendum for a semester where you received a C or below; a semester where you logged 3 or more Ws, or slipped below full-time status; and, yeah, that's basically about it. I would not write an addendum merely because, one semester, you logged straight Bs whereas you normally earned mostly As.