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Tough call, and I doubt many people outside the admission offices know the best answer. </p>
<p>On the one hand if you tell them now, then you’ll find out what schools will still offer you admission (with or without strings). There’s no guarantee once decisions are out that if you then let the schools know right away they’ll get back to you before the time to commit to one is up; hopefully they do, but we have no way of knowing (if you’re lucky, someone in a similar predicament from years past will post about how quick it took them to respond; but since this is an anonymous board, you’ll never really know if its true).</p>
<p>On the other hand if you do nothing until decisions are out then the D+ won’t affect your admission chances. We have no way of knowing if they’ll cut you a bit more slack once you’ve been admitted, as opposed to just rejecting you if you tell them now. So thats a worry on the other side of the coin.</p>
<p>As for “a reason was because i was on the varsity basketball team at school so it took a lot of time”, this is why its often not a good idea when students ask on the forum “should I write a letter to explain …”. This explanation does you more harm than saying nothing. Essentially you’re saying if you get busy your schoolwork sags. Not going to warm the heart of an adcom. A more useful approach is to explain what went wrong and why it isn’t going to happen again. You’ve learned to budget time better, monitor your committments better, focus less on non-academic pursuits, whatever.</p>
<p>So as far as when to tell them, decision making under uncertainty is part of the burden of the adult world. Welcome!</p>