<p>I have an upward trend but my grades are not competitive. However, I have decent work experience and meet all minimum requirements. How do you explain such a thing in your personal statement?</p>
<p>The reason was that I was a science major before I switched and I lacked focus. I did not know what field I wanted to enter. My first semester was a 2.16 and my final semester was a 3.46. Any way to explain this without trying to make an excuse?</p>
<p>Calculate your GPA for the last two years, many schools consider the last two years more heavily.</p>
<p>Don't say a word. Let your LOR explain what a really good student you actually are. The grad school will also look at field relevant courses so if you're applying to non-science field, they won't look at your science grades.</p>
<p>Address it in your personal statement BRIEFLY - acknowledge it and give a short and reasoned explanation that shows your current maturity and scholarship. Also, and more importantly, ask at least one LOR address the issue. They care more about who you are NOW than anything else.</p>
<p>I dedicated <em>maybe</em> 2 or 3 sentences to it. Keep it very brief, don't make excuses, and say what you learned from it - how will that experience make you a better grad student?</p>
<p>I would say ignore it - focus on what makes you a strong applicant. Let your statement of purpose explain how you are a mature applicant; I feel like addressing it means that you feel like you have something to explain or prove, but I would just spin it by treating it as a non-issue with regards to your potential as a graduate student. For example, I don't have a terribly high GPA (~3.6), but I attribute that toward spending time in the lab rather than going to classes that I found to be trivial. So, instead of getting fantastic grades, I got a Nature paper and a JBC paper to my name, and a fantastic recommendation letter from my advisor, who is in the NAS.. I guess the thing is, what did you do with your time rather than study? If you did something productive toward graduate school, say something about that, and that will shine more than anything - if you ****ed around and partied, well.. I'm not sure how you can spin that. </p>
<p>The thing is, it seems like graduate schools are evaluating your potential as a researcher - grades are a fantastic metric, as they measure intelligence and work ethic. For me, however, my metric is more about what research I have done and with whom. Do you have anything else you can point to that makes you stand out?</p>
<p>I didn't bother explaining low grades but then it has been several since I graduated college. One way in which I did address having low undergraduate grades was to take some graduate courses as a non degree student at the university I work at. The tuition was free and the high graduate degree grades might have compensated for lower undergraduate ones. Or maybe nobody bothered to look at my transcripts, who knows.</p>