<p>Hi, I'm trying to write my transfer essay to WashU, which basically asks for why I wnat to go there and everything. But there's a big jump gpa wise from my High school to my college grades, so is it a good idea to talk about that, or should i stick straight to the topic at hand with no deviation?</p>
<p>I'd stick on the subject unless...</p>
<p>1) that's the only topic and there are no additional information section</p>
<p>2) they say you can</p>
<p>I'd include it somehow, but I wouldn't focus the entire essay on it</p>
<p>I would definitely answer the question specifically--especially because it's a very important thing that admissions officers look for. You must answer this.</p>
<p>If you really must explain your "jump" from high school to college, then write it on another sheet and mail it with the application--that would be impressive.</p>
<p>good luck! :)</p>
<p>is that really a good idea? I have a similar grades jump</p>
<p>same grade jump here.. is it preferable to explain this?</p>
<p>I'd mention it, but either work it into the essay well, or don't do it at all and wrote a seperate short paragraph on it to submit along with your app</p>
<p>I'm not going to go into specifics on how I've done stuff as we're all working on the same essay for the same school...but why do you feel you need to talk about your GPA change. They'll see your HS transcript and the improvement. What more is there to say? </p>
<p>Honestly, no offense, but I think people get a bit too caught up on providing them with excess information that may annoy the adcoms. Then again, what do I know - I haven't been accepted and may not be! But I'm just saying...if I was an adcom, I'd enjoy the applications that didn't have a lot of fluff or extra info and just told me about the student. </p>
<p>Unless you had some kind of medical illness or family problems that contributed to the low GPA, I'd just let them see that you're more dedicated to grades now. </p>
<p>What's the saying I read in a College Essays book? "The thicker the app, the thicker the student." ;)</p>
<p>brand does bring up a good point</p>
<p>unless the GPA was low for a good reason, there's often not a need to mention it. You could imagine the best situation, where if you're like the first app the adcom reads, and he/she is extremely interested, or you could have bad luck and the longer your app is with needless information, they could just be annoyed.</p>
<p>generally, if you have a good reason for a low HS GPA, say it. If not, don't mention it. Anything that's on your transcripts doesn't need to take up room in your essay.</p>
<p>i agree with answering the essay question directly, as brand mentioned, but what's wrong with providing additional information such as a CV, cover letter, an additional essay, or an additional rec? it seems like a case where one would rather have too much than too little...</p>
<p>As I've always been told: ONLY provide extra information if it truly adds to your application as a whole. If you have another rec sent in, make sure it's not from another professor who's going to say practically the same exact thing as your primary professor/recommender. An additional essay is fine, but if you submit one that's not required, in my opinion, it'd better be DAMN GOOD and really reveal another side of you. </p>
<p>I've seen a couple "extra essays" on here and I didn't think they were very helpful - I actually figured the adcom would be annoyed after reading it and think "now what was the point of that?" There's a fine line, definitely. I've read of a girl admitted to everywhere that she sent in an extra dance video to except JHU (which she didn't submit the video to), so obviously sometimes extra stuff is crucial.</p>
<p>Remember, in most cases (at least for my schools), they're going to have A LOT of info about you. The application itself, the primary essay, the secondary essay, two teacher recommendations, a high school counselor recommendation, a high school transcript, a college transcript, a college catalogue describing each course, an activities sheet, standardized test scores...and probably something else I'm forgetting. That's really a lot of stuff already if they want to thoroughly read it in the short time allotted.</p>
<p>fair enough. thanks brand and everyone else</p>
<p>brand, you seem to be on top of things. let me ask you this, how is the aforementioned course catalogue included in the application? computer printed sheets? Is this sent with the primary app. These little technical things confuse and worry me. </p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>Well, if you haven't sent in the course catalogue by the time of the rest of the application, don't worry too much. It's primarly used to determine which courses will transfer, which doesn't take place until after you've been admitted. But you can send them in at the same time as everything else so they can see what classes you've taken are like, especially if the course title is not very informative. In my case, each class title is very typical (Accounting I, Calculus I) so I am holding off on the course catalogue until each college either accepts or denies me.</p>
<p>I've kept my syllabi for most of my classes and plan on getting copies of the ones I didn't think of getting (when I first started out). I'm going to make copies of those and mail them in a large brown envelope to each school that accepts me. If you can't do that, you could copy each course description from your course catalogue and mail or fax it to the school. Another way would be to send them an entire course catalogue by mail with the individual classes marked...that'd give them more work than they probably want though.</p>