<p>I have a 2.68 GPA. I know its bad, but this was mainly due to my mother dying freshman year and my fathers debilitating state after her death. I had a 2.0 freshman yr, a 2.65 sophmore yr, a 3,259 junior yr, and a 3.67 senior yr (so far) A Uconn admissions counselor told me to write a supplement regarding this, even though my counselor and a community service advisor both mentioned what happened in their recommendation letters.
Im not sure where to start even. The admissions officer said to just write my story, but Im still confused on how Im supposed to go about this. Any feedback would be helpful.</p>
<p>I’m sorry for your loss, you’ve done a wonderful job improving your grades and should be very proud of that. I think you have a few options:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Since your HG GC and advisor discuss your situation, you could leave it at that. Sometimes it’s easiest to have a third party discuss these kinds of circumstances.</p></li>
<li><p>You could write a straightforward, brief supplemental essay that describes the events that occurred during and after you mom’s death and put it in the Additional Info section.</p></li>
<li><p>Since UConn is a CA school, you could use the main essay to write about some aspect of your circumstances and how you dealt with it. My kids did this. While the death of their father was part of their essay, it really focused on themselves and some aspect of their personality or interests. For instance, one talked about how she used poetry to understand and relate to her father’s family who are from another country.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think you should go with whichever approach feels right to you. Each one allows a different level of relating your mother’s death to UConn. The first has objective adults discuss your situation; in the second, you give the facts alone; and in the third, you describe some part of you that was affected by her death.</p>