Hi all,
Looking for some advice on my difficult situation and likely attempt to transfer. I’m a student at an Ivy and was sexually assaulted there. I took what would have been my junior year off on medical leave to address my health isues away from campus and am now feeling ready to be back in a school environment. That said, I’m really hoping to transfer to a school that would offer a healthier envronment (the student who raped me is still on campus and being on campus became increasingly difficult due to ptsd)…
My GPA took a hit in the aftermath of the assault and ended up at around 3.3-3.4 before I left to take some time off. I’m now sending in transfer applications to Brown and a couple small but fairly competitive liberal arts schools and I’m worried that my low grades will negatively affect my chances of admission. The circumstances defintely affected my grades then, but I’m doing much better after time and treatment and those grades are not indicative of how I normally perform/would perform going forward. I’m concerned that mentioning these circumstances/the assault would hurt rather than help my application, but I do feel like I should explain the drop in my grades. Aside from this, my academic interests have shifted and I’m planning on speaking to that in my reasons for transferring, but I’m not sure whether I should mention the other circumstances. If anyone has any suggestions for how to handle this in my application essays, it’d be much appreciated. I’m not sure whther I should mention this at all, or how much I should disclose.
I have some great recommendations and a lot of quality extracurricular/internship experience that I hope would help my application, but I know my grades are on the lower end for transferring. Would explaining why this is the case help or hurt me long run?
