<p>has anyone applied and gotten into Mcgill with extenuating circumstances that severely lowered their gpa one year? i am planning on applying in the fall. my gpa for sophmore year was very low. however, this year, my gpa rose significantly and is on par with Mcgills standards. my guidance counselor will be writing a letter of explanation as will i, but i am curious to know if Mcgill really does take into account extenuating circumtances. mcgill is by far my first choice and i would hate for one year to ruin my chances of admission.</p>
<p>i bet if you wrote them a letter and had some darn good extenuating circumstances, they would read the letter and take it into account...i can't say what kind of influence it would still have though.</p>
<p>id say this is a tricky situation.
since mcgill is so large, i'd say that it would be kinda tricky.
following what Shana said, i'd write them a letter, or better off, why dont you call an admission officer, (the numbers on the website), you dont have to give them your name or anything, and tell them your stats and your circumstance and see what they have to say</p>
<p>You could also write an informative (and interesting) essay explaining what happened (if you feel what your guidance counselor is writing is not enough - which it might not be if it's just a few sentences, but would be if it's on-par with a recommendation). McGill does not require essays but they do say that if you feel it's necessary, you can write one.</p>
<p>i am planning on writing an essay, as well as checking and filling out the extenuating circumstances box in the application. what my guidance counselor writes will definetely be more of a recommendation/explanation and probably about a page.</p>
<p>i applied to mcgill with C's and D's for my freshman year, one semester of good grades in sophmore year and then no grades for three semesters until eventually getting really good grades these last two years. and im going to mcgill in a few months. so its possible! </p>
<p>i actually didn't apply using extenuating circumstances, i definitely had that option but because they said it would take longer for the application to process and because the application itself looked quite daunting i decided to risk it. not that im suggesting doing that and it did mean in the end i had to send off a bunch of 'explanatory notes' so i probably did the same amount of work anyway. i have no idea how admissions weighs these things up but i would think if you have a serious/valid enough 'circumstance' and have demonstraited recently youre able to achieve academically then you've got a chance. good luck!x</p>
<p>well mcgill doesnt look at freshman grades, so that had no negative effect on your acceptance. but can you explain what you meant when you said no grades for three semesters?</p>
<p>yeah sorry, i meant three terms/quaters not semesters. i get confused with all this technical lingo. i got grades in my first term like everyone else did, and they were of a's and b's but then i was in the hospital for a little while where i wasnt in school to get grades and after that i moved to england and because of the weird way that they sit exams here they decided not to put me in for them because i missed so much of the curriculum. so i got no grades then too. mcgill asked me to send them several letters with my application getting the schools to explain why i didn't have grades and such. i didn't even know that they don't count freshman grades. but it still does mean they considered evidence of my last two years in school to sufficient enough to admit me. anyway, if you're seriously concerned about the issue try e-mailing admissions and asking them. i went up to mcgill and visited last winter, i got some advice from the people there and it was really useful. more helpful than confusing folk like me anyway :)</p>