<p>I had poor grades soph. year, and I know some colleges offer open-ended essays on a subject of your choice, or offer the chance to explain any situations that might have effected your highschool performance. even though i think this would be a good opportunity to explain my grades, i also don't want to sound like one long cliche, or sound like i am asking for sympathy or making excuses for myself. </p>
<p>does anyone have any thoughts on this? is there a way to get around the inevitable "poor me" tone of an explanation essay, or would it be better to write about something entirely unrelated?</p>
<p>Well, it depends. Are you going to write about how an evil teacher "screwed me over because she totally hated me!!" or something more sympathetic, like family issues, that may have had an effect.</p>
<p>The best way to explain your grades (assuming that you have a good excuse) is to have your GC do that in the GC report. Use the essay to demonstrate what you have to offer that the college would want or need.</p>
<p>the essay might address what you learned in high school -- how to organize your time, prioritize, your love of learning, the importance of a stable support group, etc -- it could then reference teh sophomore grades as part of the learning experience. Not so much a "poor me" but as an example of a lesson learned.</p>
<p>If you are going to write it make sure it does not turn into a sympathy essay. Instead write how it made you a stronger individual and what you gained from overcoming it.</p>
<p>my soph. gpa was like a 2.0. i had grades ranging from allll across the spectrum: a-f.</p>
<p>over the course of jr. year i've brought them up but it wasn't suddenly A's...it was a process. i think the 'lesson learned' topic is a really good idea though, and maybe even possible to do without resorting to cliche. </p>
<p>I definitely had terrible grades sophomore year (I failed three classes), due to some personal problems I was having at that time. Though my GC mentioned it briefly, it was a complicated situation. I used the common app open ended essay to explain some of the things I learned during that experiences - including that sometimes, it's okay/necessary to bend or even break the rules. I found an interesting twist to it, that wasn't just "I did bad, and I learned I needed to do good." There aren't really excuses, but there are explanations, so try mentioning that in your essay. I managed to get into a fair amount of schools I wanted to go to, so will you.</p>