<p>Will admissions see the death of my father as an acceptable reason for 3 C+'s through out my report card?</p>
<p>C+ in Freshman English 1- (Didn’t count)
C+ in Freshman Geometry (GPA Factor)
C+ in Junior Year Pre Calc/Trig (GPA Factor)
C+ in Junior Year French 4 (GPA Factor)
C+ in Junior Year Economics(Elective)</p>
<p>The rest of my grades are B-'s, B’s, B+'s.</p>
<p>my dad past away in 2001 I was young so I couldn’t cope with it and I had trouble dealing with it because i felt guilty I really had taken him for granted and the fact that I didn’t understand really what it meant that he had severe cancer. so I ended up not doing work in elementary school and In junior high I didn’t work because all that mattered to me was friends and trying to fill that hole of sadness and shame with something that would take my mind off of it but I always knew I would be different and wouldn’t have a father figure growing up. I never had a good set of morals/ skill set because my elementary years where you learn the basics to everything were completely skewed because I often was not in class during elementary years because I met with the school counselor, went to the nurses office sick often, and met with an older highschooler as sort of a big brother. We also began having a lot of family issues, my mom had trouble being a single mother trying to take care of two children. A lot of family conflict throughout all my child hood years. My mom also had a boyfriend later which helped the situation a little because he kind of represented a father figure but he moved away to China just as I began to be comfortable with him and then things went down again. And then when I got to high school I knew it was time to start working but I didn’t have the skill set/dilligence/effort/motivation because It was the first time I really tried to work hard and I was missing a lot of the tools that I should have gained earlier. ANd I continued to struggle by trying to plug in the holes until junior year summer I started working on the business and I really learned how to motivate myself and teach myself what it meant to put in effort and diligence and what it felt like to be motivated. I kind of realized what it means to be working hard and what it feels like because i had never really experienced the feeling before. It was the first time I had worked that hard in my life, literally id work days from 10 am and look at the clock again and it’d be 6 pm. That really made me realize what it meant to be focused and motivated. And i feel like Im really applying that this year and even though Im starting to apply it to school its starting to work but obviously its going to progressively get better and better. But obviously its not because I’m not smart or something or a slacker. Its just that I really didn’t have the skill set that should have been established and My high schools really competitive as well being a top 10 STEM school and a top 300 school in the nation, but now Ive really discovered how to discipline and focus through pursuing and finding my passion for business. </p>
<p>Just other info: I have a lot of Leadership positions President of a business club, VP of another business club, founder of a business, captain of the varsity tennis team ( will be a recruit at D3 schools with coaches support).</p>
<p>SAT: 2100 took it again in OCT.</p>
<p>Really strong Recommendations from 2 teachers and a letter from my freshman eng teacher who had me then and now to show my change as a person and the counselor rec is strong explaining this issue as well. </p>
<p>So yeah Im wondering if my reason for a low GPA would come off as an excuse or the admissions would understand? thanks. Its really the only low aspect of my application</p>
<p>It’s honestly no excuse to say that the death of your father was the cause for low grades. No offense, but this happened 11 years ago, when you were a little kid. You did say that “all that mattered to me was friends and trying to fill that hole of sadness and shame with something that would take my mind off of it.” I think the first part of this statement is more realistic, in that you prioritized messing around with friends and slacking on everything else. I don’t really think it had much to do with the death of your father. You said “I always knew I would be different and wouldn’t have a father figure growing up.” Well you know, tons of people have grown up without a parent, and didn’t let themselves be so dramatically effected if you are indeed being completely truthful.</p>
<p>“I knew it was time to start working but I didn’t have the skill set/dilligence/effort/motivation because It was the first time I really tried to work hard and I was missing a lot of the tools that I should have gained earlier.” It doesn’t matter how skewed your education or background was when you were younger. If you KNEW you needed to work hard, which any person knows tbh, then you should have been proactive and learned the tools that you “missed out on.”</p>
<p>You say “We also began having a lot of family issues, my mom had trouble being a single mother trying to take care of two children.” and “I started working on the business” which you say you spent a lot of time doing. And then your ‘father figure’ is not there either. It’s interesting how similar our stories are, but we acted differently in our respective lives.</p>
<p>My parents were divorced when I was very young and my father basically abandoned us. I was roughly the same age when he left, as when your father died. It was just my mother, my little sister, and myself. My mom would find ways to help us going, and would eventually start a business. But the summer before sophomore year, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her treatments were going to be long and physically/mentally exhausting, and there was a significant chance that it was fatal. She asked me to take care of my little sister and to step up and help run her business. I would spend time everyday, and countless hours on weekends trying to run a business that I knew barely anything about. I also made sure I would drive and attend to all the needs of my little sister, and my mom who was very sick. But I did what I had to do despite my situation, while still maintaining diligence in my academia. </p>
<p>I’ve had my share of family issues and unexpected responsibilities/burdens, so I don’t think you should be given a free pass to excuse your grades. But that’s just me, and I’m sure you’ll be given atleast some leniency if you write a good essay about it. Who knows</p>
<p>While it may have some effect (he did die when you were young though, so it’s a stretch), your GPA is not high enough to make most of the schools you’re apply to reasonable, for example: </p>
<p>boston college, UCLA, Carnegie mellon u, U chicago, NYU, USC off the top of my head I can say most are looking for GPA’s significantly above yours. Average GPAs are usually 3.7 or higher. Your seems to be, with a combinations of mostly B’s, around a 3.0. Most of these schools are huge reaches for you.</p>
<p>SAT128, I read some of your other posts and you seem to be quite harsh on those who have lost a parent and haven’t performed as well academically. Not everyone has the maturity and ability to adjust to the circumstances as well as you did. A lot of young kids who lose their parents have a lot of difficulty getting over that fact and struggle in many areas. Just because you know you have to work hard doesn’t mean you can do that immediately if you haven’t done it at all before. Effort, diligence,motivation, and passion aren’t things you can “learn”, they are more things you develop/discover in my opinion. Anyways Im sorry for your losses and can definitely empathize with your difficulties and applaud your ability to maintain a strong academia</p>
<p>Everybody is different and comes from different backgrounds, some people have the personality to move on while others dont. SAT128 you cant bash someone else because they havent been able to move on as fast as you have. Everybody is different, if it was an extenuating circumstance then put it on your apps, but at the same time, SAT128 has a point. 11 years is far away, but obviously it can still affect your mindset so put it on your apps</p>
<p>you can get away with it for freshmen year but the fact that you did fine sophmore year and came back junior year and messed up may not help your cause btw. But bravo to you for keeping up your grades, as well as you SAT128</p>
<p>Putting myself in the place of an admissions officer I’d be concerned that whatever issues involving your father’s death affected your high school grades would affect your college performance as well. The death of a parent or another traumatic event can be used to explain a temporary drop in grades but you haven’t given colleges a solid track record they can see as your standard performance.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies guys, just to point out my grades werent really fine I mostly pulled off B-'s and B’s mostly because i had an easy course schedule and there was a lot less fighting within my family because things started going better(mom had a boyfriend etc etc). But this year I have begun to prove my self and show that I have discovered these things being in Term 1 I got 2 Bs 1 B+ and 3 A-s while taking an ap and honors class and 2 accelerated courses and one business course. So i feel like it has changed me and won’t affect my college performance because I’ve turned it around</p>
<p>Sorry for being so harsh, I just overreact a little when I feel like a person is using “family issues or death” as an excuse for not doing their best. I realize that you have probably gone through a lot as well and I’m definitely not trying to accuse you of ‘milking’ your situation to get sympathy points. But keep in mind that admission officers will only give you a certain amount of leniency based on your personal situation. </p>
<p>I just feel that the way you phrased certain things such as the death of your father being 11 years ago and you still being dramatically effected seemed extreme. But I don’t know you, so I can’t speak to the extent of how you’re effected by your family issues. But other things like you having the time to be “President of a business club, VP of another business club, founder of a business, captain of the varsity tennis team, etc” seems odd. You could have just as easily focused some of that time from those clubs/activities into studying a little more for your classes right?</p>
<p>I bashed that one other poster for being even more cryptic about his family situation due to how vague he described the ‘hardships’. I don’t have a vendetta and am not trying to be overly critical. Just answering with my opinion in regard to how an admission officer might interpret your situation. And hopefully as you’ve started to turn around your situation, it won’t be too late for college admissions. Regardless, I’m sure you’ll be fine</p>
<p>Hey I don’t sweat it man. I see where people could try to use it as an excuse. It wasn’t that I was drastically effected it was my foundation was drastically damaged by it. Elementary and Junior high are meant to set a foundation and basis for high school which really got ruined for me because I really was too young to understand how important it was on the time and that got me into issues later. As you’ve probably experienced, my family was put under a lot more pressure and things became extremely stressful. Yeah most of those things were things that helped me to realize and turn it around. Tennis for me really served as an outlet for my anger and frustration of family issues. In terms of business stuff those clubs I participated in my junior year, but really discovered my love for it over the summer where I really underwent a change, and as a result acquired leadership positions in them this fall. Thanks again for all the posts</p>
<p>This year Im doing more work than the average junior … studying for SAT, SAT 2s, doing college apps, playing tennis, improving my family relations, managing all these clubs, working on my business, while maintaining much better grades. So hopefully that comes to show the change Ive made over this summer and how I came to discover these skills through working on my business.</p>
<p>I typed admissions and death on the search for the discussion board and brought me here. I have been through the same. I am a senior and my Father passed away my freshman year. I was out for a couple of days but went back to school. It isn’t a one day thing, it is for the rest of your life. The constant thought of my Father would bring my family down. Luckily I was mentally strong and just moved on. I always thought if you want to move forward in life you have to let things that cannot change go. I would constantly tell my sibling but it effected more than me. My sibling went from a B+ student to a D+ or lower student. When I came home from any extracurricular activities I participated in, I would see my Mom and sibling disappointed. Thankfully we all moved away from this tragedy and starting to get back up onto our own feet. (Sorry I got sidetracked). For me my GPA was lower my freshman year, 3.1, the year my Father passed away. However my sophomore GPA, 3.45, and junior GPA, 3.52, go up in a positive trend which I am pretty sure colleges like. I think they (admissions offices) will give some leniency to students whose parents passed away because they humans just like us. I am hoping they do and worst comes the worst you transfer into the school you want to attend. Always be strong and never give up and look in the bright side: things can be much worse. I will conclude with this famous quote “it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish” (sorry don’t know the author)
Thank You</p>