<p>The summer of my sophmore year I took an intensive introductory Arabic language course at an ivy league school where we covered over a years worth of language in 12 weeks - the course was extremely intense - 4 hours of class 5 days a week plus over 4 hours of homework everyday and more on weekends. The course was broken up into 2 four credit courses and since I passed the class the credits were transferred to my undergrad institution transcript but without the grade. Not anticipating the intensive nature of the course and due to some personal issues that summer - I passed the class but my grades were not very good. Ive since taken 16 more credits of Arabic at my undergrad school and my grades were much better since. My issue is that since I have to send this transcript seperately they simply see 2 bad grades - I wanted to include a note just saying something like "Due to personal issues that summer my grades to introductory Arabic were not very good but I have since worked with a private tutor to improve to the point where I have gotten an A- in graduate level 3rd year Advanced Arabic and am committed to continuing my study of the language at xyz school as part of my graduate program"</p>
<p>Would this be an ok idea? Where would I put a letter like this? Could I get a sealed copy of the transcripts and then mail it to the schools along with the note? Any thoughts on this appreciated.</p>
<p>No no no. Especially if your grades have improved since! Don’t explain anything in this kind of situation, it’s not enough. Besides, everyone knows how difficult these intensive courses are. I’ve done Hebrew ulpan and I got 70s in those intensive classes and when I returned, I got As. Nobody cared. Focus on your SOP and writing sample.</p>
<p>I have to agree with ticklemepink that in this case, a note would be a bad idea: for one thing, it doesn’t sound like you have enough extenuating circumstances to really play that card effectively. (Even if you did, it’s a very tricky card to play: you always run the risk of drawing more attention to the grades). </p>
<p>I’d imagine that summer school grades, even Ivy summer school grades, are going to matter a lot less than schoolyear grades, and in your case you’ve got a lot of advanced coursework to back you up. You should be fine. Probably any explanation would just draw additional attention to something that you want forgotten.</p>
<p>I guess I thought a note would draw attention to my advanced coursework following my less than stellar summer intensive course - but I guess theyll examine that on their own…A note might sound like im just making excuses - just sucks to have to send one transcript from a seperate school with just 2 bad grades.</p>
<p>If anyone has any other opinions on this feel free to chime in.</p>