Hi guys, I’m sophomore in college. I was at a state university last year but decided to transfer because my gpa was so horrible and I didn’t want my parents paying a lot of money just so I could lower it even more. I transferred to a community college and I’m surprisingly doing way better than I thought here. I attended this university meeting at my school where the a representative from the university I wanted to attend to came and explain the transfer application process. In the presentation, she was talking the essay part of the application and suggested that if we do have bad grades, we should explain about it. I’ve research this about how to or should I explain the bad grades I got in my essay and some of them suggested I should but only if I had any family issue or some medical problem. The problem was,I just couldn’t keep up with the amount of work and at that time, I think I wasn’t ready for college and just the whole college thing was a culture shock to me. I really had no excuses but to blame myself but I don’t think its smart to write that on my college essay. I really want to write about my passion and how that university could help me but I just keep looking back to my grades in freshmen year and thinking that ruin the chances of me even getting in unless I explain why. What do you think I should do? and thank you for the response.
Write about your problems and how it interfered with several things in your life, including school. They’ll make the connection.
What I mean by problems… there’s got to be some underlying reason you weren’t able to keep up. Low self-efficacy? Depression? You should write about introspecting on an issue like, “why wasn’t I able to keep up with these things in my life?” (including grades.) Don’t make the focus of it “I DIDN’T GET GOOD GRADES SORRY”… You need to include it subtly so it doesn’t look like an excuse, but an amalgamation of several things leading to something bigger.
Self-discover in your essay. Colleges will love that.
Maybe include in your essay a reflection about why your grades suffered; if you can think critically (even if the end result is blaming yourself), admissions will take that into consideration. Just do it tastefully, and don’t try to use your essay as a way to excuse your bad grades. Own up to them, maybe write about what you could’ve done better.
Thank you both for the help. I will apply this to my essay and try to explain my bad grades in a good way as much as possible.