<p>ok so my BFF had a lot of personal issues this year and it caused her 1st semester grades to drop significantly. she's usually A student and this semester has mostly Bs and one C.</p>
<p>I told her to send a letter to her colleges explaining her problem, but she thinks this will put her in a greater disadvantage if they know her problem because it shows them something negative about her (I'd rather not explain for the sake of anonymity)</p>
<p>anyway, my question is, if she gets rejected from her top choices in April because of poor grades, can she appeal the decision and send in improved 3rd quarter/2nd semester grades? It's really the only weak spot on her application, so if she shows them improvement, can she ask them to reconsider her decision, or no?
similarly, if she gets waitlisted, can she use 2nd semester grades to help boost her chances of being taken off the waitlist?</p>
<p>please respond. any answers/opinions are greatly appreciated</p>
<p>If her issues involved her mental health, she is correct in not exposing this to colleges.</p>
<p>Without knowing the schools, it's hard to advise. Bottom line, schools don't want to hear excuses. Just read these boards and see how many have excuses!</p>
<p>Some state schools allow for appeals, most private schools don't. But even at the schools that allow them, the fact that you got better grades after you applied is usually not valid grounds.</p>
<p>yeah she applied mostly to top private schools and one SUNY</p>
<p>she got in EA to a good school (did not require 1st quarter grades) and so she only applied to top places because she thought she already had one in the bag. the problem is her GC told her that the school tends to not give awesome FA, so even though she got in she might not be able to attend</p>
<p>I think she should explain her problem to her top choice school as well as anywhere she wants to go to. Despite how deviating it is, it will be ok; adcoms will even be completely sympathetic when she dares to confide with them such things. I know a boy accepted by Harvard; he wrote about being gay in his college essay...</p>
<p>It matters what her problem is. I think her problem would to need to be a major one -- something like having been homeless, seriously ill so as to have been hospitalized, for colleges to be sympathetic. If the problem is a mental illness, colleges might be wary because they may be concerned that with the stress of freshman year, she'd relapse.</p>
<p>" I know a boy accepted by Harvard; he wrote about being gay in his college essay..."</p>
<p>Harvard doesn't mind accepting gay students. In fact, it wants to have a diverse student body in terms of sexual orientation as well as other things.</p>
<p>However, if the student had said that being gay had caused him to get mediocre grades, Harvard probably would have passed on the student and accepted instead someone who added to the campus diversity and had excellent grades.</p>
<p>It depends on the situation. My counselor interviews everyone before she writes a recommendation and she asked if there was anything I thought kept me from doing better in school. I said nothing, but she brought up some trouble that I had last year and said she would put it in her recommendation. </p>
<p>I'm not sure what the situation is so its hard to tell but if a family member died or something really bad happened to her, I think it would be a good idea to say something. If not, they might think she simply has senioritis and is being lazy. If she did do something like take drugs for example, it wouldn't be a good idea to say anything. I suppose it depends on the situation. Maybe she should talk to her college counselor about it.</p>
<p>If she leaves it alone and gets rejected, I highly doubt they'd appeal her decision. Did she apply to any other safety/match scholars that she'd have a good shot at regardless of her current grades?</p>
<p>well what I said before, she's hoping her EA school gives her good FA (I personally don't think 4 Bs and 1 C would get her rescinded....but I dunno)
and she also applied to a SUNY school</p>
<p>if she got rejected by any of her top choices, it wouldn't be because of those grades. There would have to be additional reasons. If anything, at the MOST those grades may put her on the waitlist in which case her improved grades would definitely help and either way, I think an explanation is a pretty good idea, once the personal reasons won't come across as petty.</p>