My son’s junior year in HS was less than stellar… he was advised by his guidance counsellor to write a letter to colleges he is applying to to explain why this had happened (he “came out of the closet” and became ULTRA social - for a while - thank goodness, he’s back down to earth now- can you believe, “coming out” has made him more popular - and very respected… oh how things have changed since I was in high school :-))
Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions on how to approach writing such a letter? My son is a wonderful writer and I’m sure will come up with something funny and witty, while explaining how his head became unscrewed for a period of time and is now most certainly back on track…
BUT ANY EXPERIENCE OR SUGGESTIONS WITH THIS WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.
<p>It would be better if he asked the GC to include something in his/her rec about it, too. In essay form, the basic structure would be a short part on what happened, and a long part about how much was learned from it, and how it made him a better person. Don't edit the essay yourself. If you want, make suggestions on content, but don't help with editing sentences. There is something obvious (but subtle) about the way an adult writes versus a high school student, and adcoms read a lot of essays.</p>
<p>I don't know where he is applying or what a bad senior year means, but the admissions insanity drops off sharply after you get out of the top 10-15 schools. The brand-name consciousness of the American public funnels the 1.4 million high school graduates into a very few top schools. In the top 10-15 schools, the number of extremely qualified applicants tends to stack up so that there are four/five people they would want to accept for every open slot. The large public universities are more numbers driven and may not put much emphasis on the essay. The LAC's would spend more time with an application.</p>
<p>A good book is "Acing the College Application" by Michelle Hernandez. It is concise and keeps focused on the application form. If you are interested in the extremely competitive colleges, a good book is "Harvard Schmarvard" by Jay Mathews who is a Wash Post reporter and Harvard alum.</p>
<p>Hmm.. I agree with expect<em>the</em>impossible6. It's one thing if he was discriminated against and outcasted due to his sexuality, but it's a completely different situation if his grades dropped because he was too busy partying. My close friend came out junior year (his popularity skyrocketted too), dealt with his parents' divorce, and still managed to make all A's in 5 AP classes. I'm glad he learned a lesson from his grades dropping, but it's not a legitimate reason.. I doubt adcoms are going to sympathize or look past his low grades, even if the letter were exquisitely written.</p>
<p>Kcirsch, my son will not be "pushing the social and popular aspect" ... he will be addressing the reason to why he became extremely sidetracked and let his school work, and his responsibilities to it, fall by the wayside.</p>
<p>Expect<em>the</em>impossible6, I did not ASK if coming out of the closet was an "appropriate reason" for my son's gpa decline. I know it IS the reason for it. My question was how to address explaining it in a letter to the adcoms.</p>
<p>Coming out of the closet, while causing my son to become very focused on primarily his social life (to validate his acceptance with his peers, no doubt), and making him very unfocused on his school work, was one of the most difficult and bravest things a person can do as a teen... and I am VERY PROUD of him!!!! Do you know how many teens will not come out of the closet - especially while still in high school?! So, yes, my son did have a downward spiral... many teens with far less stressful situations encounter that...but, he went through it and now he's back, stronger than ever :-) !!</p>
<p>Uhhh, my son's letter to adcoms explaining his decline is NOT TO GAIN SYMPATHY... that thought is utterly disgusting to me! The object of the letter is to show that he is human, made some mistakes, learned from them and most importantly, is a smart, enthusiastic, responsible student... nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>One final note... my son did not want to talk about his being gay at all -even though some professionals suggested he use it as the topic in college application essays...he felt that being gay is really a non-issue as it relates to who he is and chose to write his essay on his passion and enthusiasm for neuroscience (a subject he feels expresses his joy of learning). It was his guidance counsellor who felt it was important to write a letter to explain why he had a decline in his gpa of his junior year.</p>
<p>A lot of this depends on where he is applying. There are about 1.4 million high school graduates each year. Just for an example, Harvard has 15,000 applicants and only accepts 1500. At the top 10-15 colleges, an unhooked applicants is very close to being out of the running if they have a C during freshman year. Taking junior year off, to a large degree, is a major admissions problem at those schools. It doesn't diminish your son in any way and it won't affect your chances in life, but those colleges only have room for about 30000 students each year. Once you get out of the top 10-15 colleges, the competition drops off sharply and by the time to get down to the 50th or 60th ranked college, a good student pretty much gets in. (There are about 3400 colleges in the US.)</p>
<p>He can do his essay on neuroscience, and then you can include an additional explanatory note on why his grades fell off senior year. The note should not attempt to justify it in any way, but rather take full responsibility for the problem. There is no stigma about homosexuality anymore. My S's friends were saying that they were gay as early as 7th grade, although I have no idea what they meant. In today's world, I don't think you can represent it as a moral dilemna. It will be seen primarily as an expansion of his social life.</p>
<p>LELALELLEN - DD had to deal with some horrendous things in her junior year - different from your DS's circumstances - but very difficult and really affected her 2nd semester grades - the death of a young child in our family - a very serious injury - the suicide of a friend - all in a 2 month period. We were advised to have HER write a SHORT letter of explanation regarding the drop in her grades for that period - to include her perspective of how she could/would return to her 'previous' self in her senior year. Her GC also mentioned things in his eval that is sent to schools as well. It was interesting that one of the adcoms actually wrote her a personal note on her letter of acceptance and thanked her for her explanation - especially where she was able to redeem herself her 1st semester senior year.</p>
<p>I think if it is handled correctly - short and sweet tho - it can have a very positive effect on the outcome - especially if the student has 'returned' to their old self and shown responsibility in improving a not so positive situation.</p>
<p>My junior year didn't go as well as I thought because I transferred to a different school, different environment, different teachers, different grading system, and different group of students (much more competitive). Although this brought my self-esteem down (I mean, really down- my mother kept insisting that I should see a psychologist but I refused because I didn't think I was in depression-just feeling bad about myself), I kept pushing myself academically (and socially) by taking the most rigorous courseloads. However, I still got 3 As and 5 Bs in first semester and 4 As and 4 Bs in second semester. So, I am still improving and I am hoping that I will get straight As (except in AP English this year- my weakest subject). Now, I am feeling much more confident about myself. Should I write a short letter to adcom (just saying that I moved and how I challenged myself academically)? Or, is this not a good reason that adcoms should take into consideration when they look at my transcript? Sorry that I wrote this in someone else's thread. I posted this in my own thread, but nobody answered my questions.</p>
<p>expect<em>the</em>impossible: It could be an essay about the epiphany on self esteem, but your can probably do better. I would recommend that you include almost exactly what you wrote in the post as an additional attachment. The essay will be labeled at the top as "Essay:". You can label the explanatory note as "Note: grades in junior year" or something. Leave out the part about depression and your mother wanting you to see a psychologist. There is nothing wrong with it, but that's a loser in terms of the app.</p>
<p>How about saying something like confidence instead of self-esteem:</p>
<p>My junior year didn't go as well as I thought because I transferred to a different school, different environment, different teachers, different grading system, and different group of students (much more competitive). I don't mean to make excuses, but all of this was disorienting and affected my confidence. I did keep pushing myself academically (and socially) by taking the most rigorous courseloads. However, I still got 3 As and 5 Bs in first semester and 4 As and 4 Bs in second semester. So, I am still improving and I am hoping that I will get straight A's. Now, I am feeling much more confident about myself.</p>
<p>Will the adcoms frown on my explanation and the "reason" why my grades declined in my junior year? I know that they expect us to do well academically no matter where we go. I don't want them to think that when I move to college from high school, I will do poorly in classes. So, I am very concerned about this.</p>
<p>The adcoms would prefer that your grades did not decline. Walking on water would be a good thing, too. Your chances at HYP are significantly reduced, but things on CC are skewed. The insanity drops off sharply after you get away from the brand-name consciousness of the top schools. </p>
<p>Your junior year grades have already happened, and they are not that bad. It is perfectly reasonable for it to have happened. It is not going to ruin the rest of your life. On the other hand, you may not go to Harvard. I think it would be better to address the issue directly. If you do that, you are inviting them to look at your senior mid-year transcript.</p>
<p>Include a sentence that you think it has made you a stronger student and person because you are more ready for the changes that will occur when you move from high school to college.</p>