GPA drops require a letter?

SpecialAgentPunk
Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:54:49 +0000

I’m in a similar situation, where I took all honors/adv/ap classes, and had difficulty maintaining my grades. I ended my 1st semester with 2 B-'s, 1 C and 1 B+ (an A in music, which doesn’t count.) These classes, especially the C grade, aren’t directly related to my intended major (film production), but I know this definitely hurts me.

My reasons are mainly that I selected courses that challenged me, but I honestly also wasn’t particularly very interested.

However, another reason has to do with my family. No family member was in the hospital or anything like that, but I really felt significant stress from my parents. I don’t want this to come across as a ‘world-is-unfair’ type of thing, but my parents are really pulling me apart.

They’ve always had a real serious tension/lack of care for each other - such as my dad yelling curses at my mom in front of me since I was in the 2nd grade… My parents work in the same place, my mom (an accountant) works for my dad who is a CPA, and my mom and dad do not talk to each other at all. If my sister or I is at the office, our mom tells us to ask our dad what he wants for lunch because my mom says she doesn’t want to talk to him and that he won’t listen. At the dinner table (I know this sounds really cliche), the only sound is the chewing noise made by opened mouths. My dad does not buy my mom any gifts, they do not go out together, on and on.

Since my sister left for college (a year ago), I’ve been left alone to be the mediator. My older sister has also seemed to not notice the relationship between my mom and dad - I’ve had to explain to her why they always disagree and so on.

Things have been escalating. Two summers ago, my dad kept repeating something at Disneyland that made my mom started crying until I shouted, “shut up, you’re acting like a little kid,” (in the middle of one of the ice cream shops - my sister got angry that when I tried to comfort my mom during the night because I was making noise…)

This year, my dad told my mom that we were having guests for Thanksgiving…the night before. My mom told him that it’s too late and he should’ve told her earlier, but my dad replied, “Then they’re coming, you’re leaving.” I spent my Thanksgiving alone in a movie theater because I just couldn’t stay at home. I substituted my turkey with popcorn. I’m going to say that my dad is really an a-hole, there have been other incidents just this year, such as my dad not taking my mom to a wedding (she can’t drive), which results in my mom appearing very childish or very annoying when she asks me to do things for her that she doesn’t want to ask my dad to do.

I’ve confronted my parents with this several times, telling them that this really bothers me, and that we should go to counseling, but nothing has happened. I’ve told my mom years ago that she should divorce my dad because things clearly aren’t going well for the happy family thing.

Nothing physical has ever happened. I’ve had physical fights with my dad of course. No talks of divorce or even separation. Is this something I could include in my letter? Because these are some very subtle and small things, compared to something like a divorce. When I imagine writing this in a letter to explain my grades for this semester, I just see myself coming across as whiny and just making another excuse.