<p>Hello all. First of all thanks for always answering my questions and helping me navigate the academic aspect of college. Anyway, here's my situation, I am a sophomore currently majoring in chemistry and have done all right up until this point, 3.56 gpa. However this semester i hit a wall with my classes. I am taking 16 credit hours of hard classes, physics 2, quantitative chem, calc 3 and org chem 2. On top of that i am doing an independent study program doing research in my organic professors lab which i love every minute of and is the only reason i am still fighting through this semester. My grades this semester have plummeted to all C's and B's as i basically shut down and collapsed under the workload. Up until this point i was capable of winging it through my classes/only studying when under intense pressure such as the day before the exam but that is an awful way to study and i have tried fixing it. Anyway i was diagnosed with adhd this week and have started on adderall and i love it, i am able to sit down and get my **** done in a timely manner. This will not be able to save this semester though as it is coming to late. I will likely recieve a C/C+ in org chem, which is what i had thought about attending graduate school for. I am studying like mad now and am learning it alright. how bad will this look on grad schoo, apps? should i get a D in it on puropose only to retake it for academic forgivness? also is having undiagnosed adhd a good thing to mention in terms of explaining my grades this semester?</p>
<p>An overall 3.56 GPA is solid, and as long as this semester is a singular aberration, you will be fine for graduate school. Just show by your performance in the next two years that you are capable of high-level research and scholarship.</p>
<p>Many graduate schools only consider the junior and senior years, and in any event those years are always weighted much more heavily.</p>
<p>As someone who also has ADHD and applied to graduate schools I can tell you the ADHD excuse doesn’t work at all. Also the ADHD diagnosis is way too overly generalized, especially at universities where bad study habits and stress play into the picture. Have you done a full work up that diagnoses ADHD or did a college shrink just check the box next to ADHD? If it is really diagnosed after a real evaluation and treated and you get extremely high grades the rest of your college career then you should be fine. But just to warn you don’t expect a sudden miracle even after you get the correct medication and cognitive therapy to treat it. Its not a short cut, all the medication does is let us put the stuff we learned into play better.</p>
<p>meant to reply to earlier but exams/work got in the way. I had the full blown expensive *** testing done. Interviewed my family and everything. Annoying and expensive for what i already knew. I guess i should reframe it as a reason not an excuse, crap happens to everyone and you are what you make out of it. I’m still me which means i’m still lazy and would rather do many things than study but the adderall is a life saver right now, when i finally get around to studying i actually can! But anyway my real question is should i re take org chem 2 in the summer? And if i do should i bomb the %$^# out of the final so i can use grade forgivness even though the d would still appear on my transcript. I feel like if i study my butt off i might be able to pull a B/C+ out of it, maybe.</p>
<p>quick clarification, i do not plan on waltzinig in there and announcing my struggles with adhd nor do i want to. However if pressed for an explanation for the poor grades i will be receiving this semester should i offer it up as a reason or not?</p>
<p>As long as your junior and senior grades are back to the 3.5 level, I don’t think gradcoms will care about a sophomore slump.</p>
<p>That said, do not just blow off the class. A C+/B- looks a hell of a lot better than a D.</p>
<p>yeah thats what i figured…just a very tempting thought about how much easier exam week would be. If i get a C in it I’ll probally retake it over the summer, I’ll be on campus working in a lab anyway so i might as well.</p>
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<p>And you still want to go to graduate school? Graduate school can crush even diligent students. You might want to go for the best grades possible in the next two years, then plan on working for a year or so to make sure you really want to enter into much more intense study. You can do it – but not if you are still struggling with being “lazy.”</p>
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<p>How so? What was your experience?</p>
<p>My GPA <em>significantly</em> improved after I got on ADD medications. After ADD meds, my average for my last two years will be around 3.65 (which is significantly improved over my previous GPA). It’s not the strongest GPA there is, but I will have other factors for me as well (namely, LORs) - and a lot of people with higher GPAs will have lower last-2-year GPAs. My physics GPA [after freshman year] will be around 3.77. The one thing, though, is that I disclosed my ADD to everyone who will probably write a LOR for me. My improvement was so dramatic that I think that I might just skip out on mentioning ADD, but maybe it might be a better idea to get it mentioned in a LOR?</p>