I need a little bit of advice!

Transfer Students
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I have a little bit of an issue so I am just looking for some advice! I’ve posted on here before about transfer to a different school for the fall of 2012. I currently attend a small local school close to my hometown, and I’m very unhappy. I’ve had a lot of struggles during my first year. Fall quarter I failed 1 class and ended up with a 2.0 GPA. Winter quarter I am going to end up somewhere between 2.5 and 3.0, which will make my cumulative average somewhere in the middle. I thought it was just unhappiness during the fall, but as I continued to feel worse, I decided to go to the doctor just to get it checked out. I found out I was going through a pretty bad anxiety problem along with some depression. I have been on medication and working things out, but it’s a slow process! Unfortunately I still have some negative effects from this. I concentrated a lot this quarter on getting myself better, which didn’t help my academic situation. I don’t want to blame all of my struggles on this, because I should have done more at the time to get better, or worked harder and pushed through it, but didn’t so now I have to deal with the repercussions. I didn’t include any of this information on my applications because I didn’t know about it at the time I submitted them. </p>

<p>I was wondering if it would be a good idea to send a letter to colleges telling them what was going on, and the effects that it had on my grades? I don’t want this to seem like trying to take an easy way out for my bad grades, because this was an actual problem for me that I really struggled with. </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>First, yes, go ahead and update the colleges you applied to of your medical/mental health situation.</p>

<p>However, unless the colleges you applied to regularly take students in the 2.3 - 2.6 range, even a letter is unlikely to help this round. However, it may help in a future round.</p>

<p>You are probably going to need to take another year at your local university and get solid grades to show that you are on track academically and medically/emotionally. It sounds like you can’t “show” this just yet, thus an extra year and then reapply.</p>

<p>Put another way, you could stablize medically and emotionally and still get so-so grades… depression might be one factor getting in the way, but there are many components and moving parts in getting good grades. There are depressed people who get straight As and super-happy people who get Cs and Ds. The transfer colleges can’t assume that once the meds kick in that you will then suddenly be a 3.3+ student.</p>

<p>Take the time to feel better, regroup, succeed at your local college and then reapply,</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

3

<p>Thanks! Would you mind looking over my letter and letting me know if it sounds alright?</p>

4

<p>bump! Anyone else?</p>

5

<p>Sorry bumping this again</p>