<p>Currently I have a 98.9 average at a very competitive public high school (98% go to 4-year college). I'm not sure what that would be on a 4.0 scale. My GPA puts me in the top 15% of my class barely, which is obviously a disadvantage to me. </p>
<p>I have a very high upward trend in my grades, and my classes have only gotten harder as I take more APs. Also I go to a small school with not many course options... when I graduate I will have taken 10 out of 11 AP classes offered at my high school.</p>
<p>The reason for the upward trend in my GPA is because, I think, of family trouble during my freshmen and sophomore years. My father began doing drugs and abusing alcohol after my step-mom died when I was 10. During the summer before my freshmen year, my father was arrested for drug possession and sent to prison for 6 months, and a live-in rehab facility for another 8. My biological birth mother divorced my dad when I was 2 and was hit by a car when I was about 8 or 9. She is now handicapped and lives in an assisted living home in Minnesota. I live with my grandparents. Would all of this be advantageous to put on my college application under my personal statement? I don't want to seem morose in anyway, I am actually a very happy person. But sophomore year was really not good for me, and I wonder if this explanation would be enough to offset my low GPA and class rank... </p>
<p>Opinions would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>It would be better if someone who writes a recommendation for you discusses your personal difficulties and how they’ve affected your GPA and class rank.</p>
<p>^^ agreed. its not socially-accepted if u complain/brag about urself, but its wonderful if someone else does it for you.</p>
<p>I see. This has crossed my mind before. I think I will have excellent teacher recommendations without any sort of sympathy though.</p>
<p>Not a single person knows these things except my family. Since I live with my grandparents, I never told anyone that my father was arrested before sophomore year, not even my closest friends. I really hate when people pity me, and telling anyone about my situation would probably invoke pity. None of my teachers know anything about my family life other than I live with my grandparents, and I’m not comfortable telling them.</p>
<p>If you think that it would look bad for me to write about this in my personal statement then there will likely be no mention of any personal problems I had at all. I’m not willing to risk giving a bad impression by writing about this, nor am I comfortable with having a teacher write about my difficulties for me.</p>
<p>While I hardly think that relating my experiences would be bragging about myself since my grades did suffer as a result, I do understand how the Adcom reading my application may think that I was just trying to invoke pity.</p>
<p>Any other opinions are of course welcomed.</p>
<p>I think guidance counselors are usually the ones that write that sort of thing- they just like hearing about it from a third-party source.</p>
<p>I’d say write your personal statement about something else but if you can’t have your GC write about it, maybe you’d want to put it in the “extra info” section? GC writing it, however, is probably the best option…</p>
<p>ya i figure guidance counselor would be the 1 to write about family. i know at our school gc’s gave everyone forms to fill out asking about stuff to include in the recommendation & if u had any family stuff u’d wnat them to mention</p>
<p>98.9 and top 15%? 98.9 out of a 100 right? Come to my school. We’ll have you as Valedictorian.</p>
<p>I do not know my high school counselor on a personal level at all. She’s very busy, and we only have one counselor for our high school of 750. Maybe over the summer I will figure things out and perhaps work up enough courage to ask a teacher to write a rec with this information. I’m a very strong willed person, and I know it’s silly, but it’s very hard for me to show my weaknesses to anyone else.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice everyone, I’ve found your posts to be insightful.</p>
<p>“98.9 and top 15%? 98.9 out of a 100 right? Come to my school. We’ll have you as Valedictorian.”</p>
<p>Thank you Gryffon, as I mentioned my school, and especially my class, is extraordinarily competitive. I live in a suburban area and most of the kids are white and from upper-middle or upper class families. My AP chemistry teacher knows how unusual our class is for being so competitive and so she is going to write something about that in her rec. Hopefully the schools I apply to will recognize that my GPA is very high for top 15%…</p>
<p>Get to know your guidance counselor or a teacher well enough for them to include that info in their recommendation. You’ve been through some unusually difficult things – the kind of things that admissions officers want to know about so that they can evaluate an applicant fairly.</p>