Explaining a period of poor performance on the Personal Statement is a must?

[johnwandering]

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The first two years of my undergraduate career, I had a cGPA of 3.085

The last two years, I had a cGPA of around 3.85 while taking more difficult classes and more credit hours. (ended with a cGPA of 3.6)


I was wondering, is it a positive to include why I had these problems on my Personal statement?
The explanation is that (an excuse but a real one) I'm an ambitious student. I would be working a full time leadership responsibility that required ~30 hours of commitment a week while taking courses like Orgo, physics, and human phys and GERs simultaneously. Needless to say, it was too much for me personally.
As I evolved as a student I found my limits and I vastly improved. I hit a higher semester GPA every semester without missing a step.



I always felt like this would be forcing an excuse on the PS that I would very well explain in the interview. Also, the layout of my PS doesn't really give an opening for this, so either I have to rewrite the entire thing or stick it in and try to crazy glue it together.

 

[MexicanDr]

The first two years of my undergraduate career, I had a cGPA of 3.085

The last two years, I had a cGPA of around 3.85 while taking more difficult classes and more credit hours. (ended with a cGPA of 3.6)


I was wondering, is it a positive to include why I had these problems on my Personal statement?
The explanation is that (an excuse but a real one) I'm an ambitious student. I would be working a full time leadership responsibility that required ~30 hours of commitment a week while taking courses like Orgo, physics, and human phys and GERs simultaneously. Needless to say, it was too much for me personally.
As I evolved as a student I found my limits and I vastly improved. I hit a higher semester GPA every semester without missing a step.



I always felt like this would be forcing an excuse on the PS that I would very well explain in the interview. Also, the layout of my PS doesn't really give an opening for this, so either I have to rewrite the entire thing or stick it in and try to crazy glue it together.

Honestly, if it was a medical, family issue that could have not been prevented, yeah, mentioning briefly is a good idea, but never make it sound as an excuse.

In your situation it was more of a personal choice that you knew it was too much and still didnt do anything about it; it went on for more than a year. So it wasnt something inevitable....

 

[Chevy Chase Fan]

what if there's no real excuse, like you just didn't care about school and made a conscious decision to focus your efforts on other things (partying, hobbies, whatever)? should one address the poor grades in his personal statement in those circumstances?

 

[NotAsking4Much]

No don't. You have the secondary (in most schools) to do that. Address the prompt of "why medicine?" succinctly and compellingly.

 

[Cleavername]

what if there's no real excuse, like you just didn't care about school and made a conscious decision to focus your efforts on other things (partying, hobbies, whatever)? should one address the poor grades in his personal statement in those circumstances?

make one up. i prob will lol.

 

[eablackwell]

I had a 2.0 GPA after my freshman year mostly due to serious health issues. I devoted one paragraph in my ps to it and how even though it was health related I grew and learned from the situation, inclusive of some preventative techniques that have kept such a problem from resurfacing.

I definitely didn't dwell on it, but I used it as a set up for my growth as an individual (I'm non-trad, so I've had about 8 years extra). I'm not sure if this was appropriate for a PS, but it felt okay to me. My GPA trend is 2.0, 3.5, 3.78, 4.0, so even though I ended up with a somewhat crap cgpa, hopefully they won't think the PS is just blowing smoke. 🙂

 

[MaryLennox]

The first two years of my undergraduate career, I had a cGPA of 3.085

The last two years, I had a cGPA of around 3.85 while taking more difficult classes and more credit hours. (ended with a cGPA of 3.6)


I was wondering, is it a positive to include why I had these problems on my Personal statement?
The explanation is that (an excuse but a real one) I'm an ambitious student. I would be working a full time leadership responsibility that required ~30 hours of commitment a week while taking courses like Orgo, physics, and human phys and GERs simultaneously. Needless to say, it was too much for me personally.
As I evolved as a student I found my limits and I vastly improved. I hit a higher semester GPA every semester without missing a step.



I always felt like this would be forcing an excuse on the PS that I would very well explain in the interview. Also, the layout of my PS doesn't really give an opening for this, so either I have to rewrite the entire thing or stick it in and try to crazy glue it together.

i dont really think you need to explain anything unless it's below a 3.0, especially if you have an upward trend. i think addressing it would sound like making excuses and draw attention to it where otherwise it might not have even really been noticed. if they want to know, they will ask during an interview. but if your final GPA is in the 3.6 range you really shouldnt worry about it. i imagine that reading personal statements gets boring and lots of people write about why their grades are what they are . . . you'd be doing yourself a favor to write about something more interesting. my grades were a bit below average, but not shockingly bad. i didnt address it in my PS, and nobody asked me about it.