Huge grade drop junior year but brought back up senior year, do I have to explain in my essay?

<p>Okay so in high school I wasn't the best student, but I wasn't the worst. I took mostly honors classes and I averaged probably about a B or B- throughout in my honors and APs. The second half of junior though, my grades plummeted. My averages at the end of the year were 2 Ds 2 Cs and a B. The truth is yeah I was dealing with some personal issues at the time. I'm not saying this all happened because of one reason, and I take full responsibility and regret letting my grades fall, but still school wasn't really one of my biggest concerns for a couple months. I can't pinpoint one reason, but I was overwhelmed with personal matters that I have trouble articulating. Not really family or death or anything, but everyday felt like I was just stressed and struggling to get through it. I was missing a couple assignments here and there, and then it suddenly snowballed into what felt like an insurmountable obstacle. I didn't care about myself, my grades, or my life. I couldn't sleep. I felt like shit. I would try to get back, but I felt trapped. I felt like a piece of shit so it just conveyed into me being an ass to my teachers and family. My guidance counselors and teachers reached out to me, but I was reluctant to say anything. I was lost as hell. Thinking back it was so stupid. I can't remember how it started or why I couldn't end it, but I just remember being miserable and numb to what was going on. I was still laughing around with friends, but I just couldn't get my school shit together. At night I just thought about how badly I was fucking up everything, but I couldn't do anything about it.</p>

<p>Anyways, that summer I really just got serious about my work. I was tired of feeling sorry for myself, and I just needed a change. Senior year I've been banging out A's in my APs and I'm looking at a 2000 SAT score. My big question is, will colleges deny me on the fact that my junior year grades were so bad out of the blue? Overall I have a 3.0 GPA uw because of that year, and so I'm not looking at any ivys obviously. But if my numbers match up with colleges, will the junior year grades be a red flag that the admissions people will be turned off by? </p>

<p>I was thinking about explaining it in my common app essay, but I already have a decent write up of a classic failure story that I "learned a valuable lesson from" you know cheesy stuff. Also, I just don't know how to say what happened eloquently...just a couple months where I wasn't at my best. Help me out, what do you think?</p>

Your junior year experience sounds almost identical to my own. May I ask how things turned out? I’m hoping my ACT score will offset my shitty junior year grades.

The Common App essay isn’t the place to explain grades, the Additional Information section is for that. However, I’m not quite sure this situation would warrant an explanation – you might just have to let your grades speak for themselves. Good luck!