<p>Also, if you did very poorly your freshman year, you need to have a very good explanation for that poor performance that can be placed in your GC letter or in a letter explaining extenuating circumstances (e.g. you were undergoing medical treatments for a severe illness, death of a parent or sibling, etc). Things like "not liking a course" and doing poorly in it freshman year", will not likely be something looked favorably upon by college adcoms (disclaimer...that is my opinion). I also can't imagine a GC who would write a letter "As you can see, Student did not do well in two courses his freshman year. He did not really have an interest in these courses. As you can see, for courses of interest in subsequent years, Student did very well." Doesn't seem like something that anyone would deem a reasonable reason for doing poorly in a course freshman year. Sorry...I don't think this would fly.</p>
<p>Well I was planning on using my LD/ADHD as an excuse, a bad one though. I would probably put more of an emphasis on how I overcame it and went on to achieve basically straight A's for 10th and 11th grade (so far, only 1st quarter).
If I talked of how failing was a wake up call to how much my LD was effecting me and that I realized I needed to start dealing with it, then that MIGHT fly more then just talking about why I failed. Any input on this idea is appreciated.</p>
<p>I don't think you should write anything about it but leave it to yourGC to include it in his/her evaluation especially if your LD was diagnosed after freshman year (if you were diagnosed before starting high school then "using LD/LDHD as an excuse" isn't really going to fly.</p>
<p>Well what if I said failing was a 'wake up call'? Hopefully the colleges will see that I went from having a F average in the class 9th grade to having a 95+ avg in the same class when I took it the second time shows I am not dumb, and that having A's in all other classes 10th grade on shows I am a hard worker.</p>
<p>I would not see this as a wake up call because if you had a "F" average, you had no other choice but to do better (the alternatives would be getting left back or not graduating on time)</p>