I had a 3.9 unweighted going into our last grading period of junior year, and I was working the hardest I ever had. Then there was a sudden and unexpected death in the family and it was overwhelming, I just couldn’t concentrate. My GPA dropped terribly, down to a 3.6. This puts me out of contention for a lot of my match schools. What do I do from here since I can’t raise an unweighted GPA? Any advice is welcome.
I was planning on applying to:
-Carnegie Mellon
-Cornell
-Notre Dame
-Penn
-PSU
-Georgia Tech
-Maybe one or two of the HYPSM
I’m just really scared that admissions officers won’t take the death into account for such a huge drop. I still have great ECs, volunteer, and everything else. I even just got voted VP of NHS.
If you write a strong essay telling them that the death was an obstical you had to overcome, I think that you would not be ruled out from all of these schools. You may get waitlisted so they can see your 7th semester grades. If your grades are back on track, I think you still have a shot. Best of luck,
Like everyone above said, mention the situation in an essay or have a counselor write a letter and the school should understand. However, make sure your SAT/ACT and extracurriculars are very strong for the more selective schools. Good luck!
Prep and prep some more for fall SAT and maybe even ACT. Your weighted GPA should be much higher right, you were taking a bunch of AP classes, correct? What is your weighted rank?
Engineering at PSU and Pitt is very good, why go to Georgia Tech and pay OOS tuition rates?
Put Lehigh on your list as well, it is another good engineering school in PA.
Also U Rochester and Case Western.
You can leave Cornell and CMU on the list as reaches, but not sure if it’s worth the extra money.
I recalculated by GPA cumulatively, and it isn’t nearly as bad as I thought, it’s a 3.83 unweighted. I posted by new stats and test scores that came out today.