Senior year grades + troubles

Applying to College
1

<p>I had bad grades my senior year, but I have a reason for it.
Junior year grades
AP cal AB B
AP US history A
AP Spanish language A
H Chemistry A
English H A</p>

<p>Senior year
AP cal BC C
AP Econ B
AP English B
physics B
art B</p>

<p>but my senior year, I experienced a death in my family and I had no time to fit school in with what was going on
in addition to that, I had so many responsibilities such as class prez and humanitarians prez</p>

<p>Does it help of I explain this in the additional section of my common app and will it really make a difference?
Will the admissions understand?</p>

2

<p>Oh and I also applied for questbridge and visited campuses</p>

3

<p>And I was also taking two college courses</p>

<p>Japanese A
speech 101 A</p>

4

<p>So let’s see how schools will take this: I didn’t have time to work on my HS schoolwork because someone died in my family and I was enjoying my clubs… What do you think?</p>

5

<p>From here, it looks as if you had too much on your plate. Do you really want to raise that as a possibility?</p>

6

<p>I would just say your teachers didn’t like you and leave it at that.</p>

<p>Seriously, playing the death card is always a gamble, and with everything else you had going on it looks like a weak play for sympathy. If it were me I would make no attempt to explain away the grades.</p>

7

<p>Depends on how serious the death was. If it’s an immediate family member(parent or sibling) that’s a legitimate excuse & I think anyone would be traumatized for a while. But if it’s someone closely related, gradparent, aunt, or uncle, I don’t think they’ll accept that as something that would cause so many grades to drop or that would take up a lot of your time.</p>

<p>sorry for your loss =(</p>

<p>EDIT: did I really say “how serious the death was”? I’m pretty sure dead is dead no matter what</p>

8

<p>well my teacher who I knows what i went through and he asked me if he can include it in the rec he is doing for me
do you think its a good idea?</p>

9

<p>I think xAAAx is right; it depends on who the person was. If one of your parents passed away, yea, that’s major and should be mentioned – not as an excuse, but as an explanation. If it was a cousin, not so much.</p>

10

<p>Well it was a close aunt who lived with me and my teacher told me if I want him to include it in my letter of rec but idk what to tell him.</p>

<p>It really did affect me, I missed school for a whole week :(</p>

<p>and I had low A’s once this happened</p>

11

<p>

I’m surprised you read it that way. If a club position is deemed important by OP then it arguably demands just as much attention as school classes. Club positions aren’t luxuries by any means unless they are not serious. I hope adcoms are not this quick to judge but I am cynical that they are…</p>

12

<p>I’m not sure where you got that idea, monstor. I’m pretty serious about the few clubs I’m involved in, but if the quality of my schoolwork started to drop because of them I wouldn’t hesitate to cut back my involvement. Having a work ethic doesn’t mean cutting back on the things you are required to do in order to accomplish the things you’d like to do.</p>

<p>Of course, this is all kinda off topic, since I’m pretty sure the OP’s problem was not really about having too many clubs.</p>

13

<p>Your teacher can mention the death if he believes it will add information to his recommendation. However, mentioning that EC’s took too much time - not a good idea.</p>

<p>I, too, offer my condolences on your loss.</p>

14

<p>amarkow, you’re right, this isn’t really the problem; I was more responding to post #4.</p>