declining GPA & too personal to explain

[nychila]

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I have a declining cGPA and sGPA due to personal reasons from many facets of life. I know that many secondary applications have a section to explain grade anomalies or interviewers might be curious. My dilemma is that my reasons are very complex & personal, thus I have a strong preference not to disclose them. Maybe I can find myself mentioning it in a sentence or two, but maybe not. I have become increasingly involved through the years, but I know for a fact that is not the reason for my grades slipping.

I would really appreciate any advice on how I should tackle secondary questions that provide space for explaining grade anomalies, and also what I should do if an interviewer asks me about my declining trend. 😕

Things have gotten much better & I can confidently state that I am ready to achieve academically in medical school (becoming much less involved will help too). I am keen to be admitted to an MD program this cycle rather than taking additional years to supplement my GPA.

Thank you for your input. 🙂

 

[JESSFALLING]

I agree with the above poster. Might I add two suggestions though. If you're unwilling to share, then delay your application. You should at least have a year of recent 3.6+ GPA too offset the decline. Secondly, I highly recommend that you find a counselor to talk to.

 

[xXIDaShizIXx]

I agree with the above poster. Might I add two suggestions though. If you're unwilling to share, then delay your application. You should at least have a year of recent 3.6+ GPA too offset the decline. Secondly, I highly recommend that you find a counselor to talk to.

I think this would be the best course of action as well.

 

[Catalystik]

Things have gotten much better & I can confidently state that I am ready to achieve academically in medical school (becoming much less involved will help too). I am keen to be admitted to an MD program this cycle rather than taking additional years to supplement my GPA.

I suspect that few allopathic med school adcomms are going to take your word for it. They will want to see proof that you're capable of consistent excellent grades after your downward slide, regardless of the reason.

 

[nychila]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I get the sense that it would likely help my situation if I could convey, perhaps generalize, my past troubles, and how I've dealt with them, and grown from those experiences.

On secondary applications without a question specifically designated to explaining GPA anomalies, but with a space for final remarks, should I mention, thus draw attention to, my GPA decline? Ie. how heavily will admissions consider my GPA decline in my application, if my other components are "very good"?

Also, how would interviewers view me if I expressed a preference not to disclose my reasons when they ask me about my GPA decline?

 

[thlaxer]

Also, how would interviewers view me if I expressed a preference not to disclose my reasons when they ask me about my GPA decline?

Not too favorably would be my guess. Your interviewer is going to act as your advocate in their evaluation (assuming they like you). By saying you'd rather not talk about it (if asked), you aren't exactly making it easy for them to give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't think that you need to be very specific if you aren't comfortable with it, but you should at least give them something general to work with imo, e.g. death in the family, etc. Saying it's personal and avoiding the question isn't going to do you any favors.. They might just assume you don't have a good reason and were just slacking off.