<p>I'm currently a student at a big public school in Pennsylvania and I am finding myself more and more unhappy with the school every day. I had a horrible first semester, I had to leave school during the middle of my midterms for an emergency surgery and none of my teachers allowed me to push the test back until I had really recovered. I had to take four midterms while on an antibiotic and multiple pain killers. That's not really the worst part, though. I hadn't gotten a roommate in the beginning of the year because of a housing screw-up, so naturally the housing people assign me a new roommate as I am out of school in the hospital. When I walked back into my dorm room I had a brand new roommate. Over the next two weeks, that roommate lit his desk on fire and attempted suicide. Needless to say, the whole situation was stressful and awful and I didn't do as well on my midterms as I would have liked. </p>
<p>Anyway, I guess my question is if a strong second semester mid-term report with good Recs and an explanation for the atypical first semester grades would be able to offset the lower GPA from the first semester?</p>