How should I answer this secondary question?

[winterwind_23]

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I'm pre-writing secondaries now, and there seem to be a lot of schools with prompts asking about inconsistencies in grades/scores. This is an example of one of those prompts:

• Please explain any inconsistencies in your university, graduate, or professional school academic performance and/or MCAT scores. (1,000 character limit)

Since this is optional, is this a good place for me to explain poor grades and inconsistencies between undergraduate GPA, MCAT score, and postbacc GPA? For example, I have a 3.27 undergraduate GPA, but a 35 MCAT and 4.0 postbacc GPA. Or should I leave it blank and not try to explain why I didn't do as well in college, since it might come off as trying to make up excuses? Is this prompt only meant to be answered by people who, for example, had a 2.0 for three semester, but eventually had an upward trend?

What I plan to write is that I went to an extremely under-performing school (labeled as Consistently-Lowest Achieving School by the State of California, very few AP classes, majority low-income, etc.), and was underprepared for a top college (Yale). The thing is, I should have gotten better grades after my freshman year if this were the case, but that didn't really happen. I'm then going to write about how holding down jobs after graduation with a lot of responsibility helped me mature and become a better student, and also having a goal (becoming a doctor) allowed me to focus on my academics to score a 96th percentile on the MCAT and get a 4.0 in my postbacc.

Does this sound like it has potential, or does it sound like I'm making excuses? @LizzyM, @Goro , @gyngyn , I need your wise advice on how to handle this secondary question, please! Anyone have a similar background that can offer advice?

Thanks!

 

[ndafife]

The transition from high school only works as an excuse for a semester or two of college, so if your GPA was consistently low then I wouldn't do that.

I would focus on this:

how holding down jobs after graduation with a lot of responsibility helped me mature and become a better student, and also having a goal (becoming a doctor) allowed me to focus on my academics to score a 96th percentile on the MCAT and get a 4.0 in my postbacc.
Thanks!

 

[Oranges2]

I am also curious about this...I got As and Bs (mostly Bs in science courses) freshmen/sophomore year but got straight As the remaining years in all courses landing at a 3.7c and 3.78s. My mcat is mediocre at 30.. Is this situation worth commenting on for this type of essay question? I would likely discuss the transition from high school to college if I did write about it. Or should I write about why my mcat is on the lower end?

 

[winterwind_23]

The transition from high school only works as an excuse for a semester or two of college, so if your GPA was consistently low then I wouldn't do that.

Ok, I'll definitely focus on my maturation post-graduation. But I think I still want to mention that I went to an underperforming school that didn't prepare me for college. Can I just mention that in a sentence or two and focus the rest of the essay on post-graduation, or do you think I should just leave it out entirely?

 

[LizzyM]

I am also curious about this...I got As and Bs (mostly Bs in science courses) freshmen/sophomore year but got straight As the remaining years in all courses landing at a 3.7c and 3.78s. My mcat is mediocre at 30.. Is this situation worth commenting on for this type of essay question? I would likely discuss the transition from high school to college if I did write about it. Or should I write about why my mcat is on the lower end?

Why did someone who was at the top of the class in upper level college courses score at about the median on the MCAT? Test anxiety pulled down the MCAT? Grade inflation affected the GPA? Some things are better left unexplained.

 

[winterwind_23]

Why did someone who was at the top of the class in upper level college courses score at about the median on the MCAT? Test anxiety pulled down the MCAT? Grade inflation affected the GPA? Some things are better left unexplained.

@LizzyM, any advice for my situation?

 

[ndafife]

Ok, I'll definitely focus on my maturation post-graduation. But I think I still want to mention that I went to an underperforming school that didn't prepare me for college. Can I just mention that in a sentence or two and focus the rest of the essay on post-graduation, or do you think I should just leave it out entirely?

Focusing on the post grad shows how you have grown and how you got better as a person/student and refocused yourself. Thats the point of the essay. That's what you want to convey.

Brining up your high school will do you nothing in your situation. If you had like a 2.0 freshman year then straight A's from then, yeah then bringing up HS would really help. But your sophomore/junior/senior year performance wasn't much better than your freshman year one, so HS doesnt really explain anything related to why the GPA is so low. It just sounds like you are scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses

 

[Oranges2]

Why did someone who was at the top of the class in upper level college courses score at about the median on the MCAT? Test anxiety pulled down the MCAT? Grade inflation affected the GPA? Some things are better left unexplained.

Unfortunately I've never been good at standardized tests, especially verbal. My breakdown was 11/11/8 (VB) (and this was a retake)

Ok so I guess there's really nothing to explain in my situation...

sorry for hijacking, OP, back to you!

 

[LizzyM]

@LizzyM, any advice for my situation?

You could say you were ill prepared for the demands of Yale College given your experience at an under-resourced and under-performing HS school and that you had a hard time building over four years given the lack of a foundation. Furthermore, you fell further behind year after year as each year builds on the prior year.

Then you say how you found your motivation after working and deciding on medicine. I think that's totally legit and you have the MCAT to prove that you have the smarts (obviously Yale thought you had the smarts but you didn't have the support you needed to do as well as you could have done there -- or you thought you were doing "well enough" and skated happily along without gunning for a super high GPA).

 

[winterwind_23]

You could say you were ill prepared for the demands of Yale College given your experience at an under-resourced and under-performing HS school and that you had a hard time building over four years given the lack of a foundation. Furthermore, you fell further behind year after year as each year builds on the prior year.

Then you say how you found your motivation after working and deciding on medicine. I think that's totally legit and you have the MCAT to prove that you have the smarts (obviously Yale thought you had the smarts but you didn't have the support you needed to do as well as you could have done there -- or you thought you were doing "well enough" and skated happily along without gunning for a super high GPA).

Thanks for the advice! I could say that I didn't have the "support" that I needed - for example, I couldn't get guidance from my parents, since I was first-generation, and I was unsure who to turn to for help. Honestly, I was also OK with a mediocre GPA, since I wasn't pre-med, and didn't realize the importance of getting a high GPA. I knew higher GPA is better than a lower GPA, but nobody really told me I needed a certain GPA to get into medical school or graduate school until it was too late. Is it a good idea to say that I was unaware of the importance of a high GPA, so I didn't stress myself too much over exams?

 

[LizzyM]

Thanks for the advice! I could say that I didn't have the "support" that I needed - for example, I couldn't get guidance from my parents, since I was first-generation, and I was unsure who to turn to for help. Honestly, I was also OK with a mediocre GPA, since I wasn't pre-med, and didn't realize the importance of getting a high GPA. I knew higher GPA is better than a lower GPA, but nobody really told me I needed a certain GPA to get into medical school or graduate school until it was too late. Is it a good idea to say that I was unaware of the importance of a high GPA, so I didn't stress myself too much over exams?

Certainly you had the support of your college master etc. but everyone though you were doing "well enough" particularly given your background as a first generation college student and you didn't know that you were capable of anything better or that there was any reason to be concerned about your college grades so long as you were staying out of academic trouble.

It is pretty common to see non-trads who did ok in college but were capable of turning it up a notch when they realized what they needed to prove to get into med school.

 

[neurotroph]

You could say you were ill prepared for the demands of Yale College given your experience at an under-resourced and under-performing HS school and that you had a hard time building over four years given the lack of a foundation. Furthermore, you fell further behind year after year as each year builds on the prior year.

Then you say how you found your motivation after working and deciding on medicine. I think that's totally legit and you have the MCAT to prove that you have the smarts (obviously Yale thought you had the smarts but you didn't have the support you needed to do as well as you could have done there -- or you thought you were doing "well enough" and skated happily along without gunning for a super high GPA).

Is this something that would be suitable for disadvantaged status, or should it be reserved for when you're asked about it in secondaries/interviews?

 

[carpediem22]

Hope no-one shoots me for asking this but..

What do we write here if there isn't much to talk about? As in, if we have a high GPA and MCAT? My GPA is brought down by a handful of A-'s, but I have a feeling that if I tried to explain this as an inconsistency I *might* get viewed as a neurotic, hyper-competitive person... on the other hand, would leaving it blank come across as cocky? I realize that A-'s aren't bad, but if that is the lowest I've gotten, do I write about it or leave the essay blank?

 

[Glazedonutlove]

Hope no-one shoots me for asking this but..

What do we write here if there isn't much to talk about? As in, if we have a high GPA and MCAT? My GPA is brought down by a handful of A-'s, but I have a feeling that if I tried to explain this as an inconsistency I *might* get viewed as a neurotic, hyper-competitive person... on the other hand, would leaving it blank come across as cocky? I realize that A-'s aren't bad, but if that is the lowest I've gotten, do I write about it or leave the essay blank?

leave it blank lol

 

[carpediem22]

That's what I figured, I just didn't know if you can leave questions blank.

Stupidest question I've ever asked on SDN, can only go up from here! ahahah