Throughout his high school my friend had As and only three Bs but for his first semester of junior year he got 5 Bs , he took 5 AP classes. This semester he is getting all As and hopes to do so next year. Concerning his Bs first semester of junior year he says that he went to the gym for 3 hours five days a week and that really affected his ability to study. I feel like this is a weak reason for getting Bs and it was only after first semester that he quit the gym and concentrated fully on school. How can my friend convey through his college essays that he struggled first semester due to his “gym” problem without making it sound weak or inexcusable?
It is weak and inexcusable. That was a choice he made, to prioritize a hobby over grades.
Point being: don’t make that excuse. And DON’T waste an essay on it. Essays are for helping you show personality and character, not trying to explain away bad choices.
I would suggest an essay that addresses the grades problem without dwelling on it. The essay would be about the why he got so involved with the gym, how he recognized the problem, and how he got out of it. It would be an essay about choices, both good and bad. Along the way there might be a single sentence about the effect on grades. And somewhere near the end there could be regret and acceptance of the consequences. This would reveal maturity, which is what admissions officers like to see.
Just my two cents.
My friend desired to get into body building and also wanted to lose a substantial amount of weight(he was overweight). After he saw that it affected his grades he immediately stopped but it was already too late. Ultimately he sacrificed self image for education and payed for it. His dream school UCLA matches all his stats except his GPA which was affected by that semester. One of the Uc essays asks for any problem a person had that explains a drop in grades or scores. If my friend really does well with this essay he could get in! Any more advice with this information?
I’d say it would show poor judgement to explain that in an essay. Why might you think that going to the gym is a more understandable or justifiable reason for B’s than other reasons? B’s are not bad grades but obviously they are not as high as they could be. However, discussing them is drawing attention to them and the justification does not make a lot of sense-as justification anyway.So I’d choose a different essay topic.
D is a swimmer and during swim season, they work out 3 to 4 hours every day with meets in between. Even now, she works out about 1.5 hours, 3 hours on weekend. It seems that your friend has time management issue and maybe also took too many APs than he can handle. He could have stayed up late to get As, right? I think no matter how you spin it, it doesn’t sound good.
Don’t use the essay to “apologize” for ANYTHING.
Approach the essay similarly as you would the conversation on a first date. To impress someone on a date, you don’t launch into apologizing for your back acne. Because once you mention the back acne, that’s all your date is going to be thinking about…
^GMT7 is right. An essay shouldn’t be an apology. It should be a “lessons learned” story.
However, the story of overdoing it, finding balance, self image, etc., could be a compelling essay - but it shouldn’t be “why I got B’s first semester junior year”.
It depends on the way he words it out. I would try to convey it in this light: During my junior year I experienced a surge of self-consciousness always hyperfocusing on my appearence, however, over time I grew up and realized that it didn’t take hundreds of hours at the gym to make me a good and valuable person for junior year is the year I reached my transition into adulthood. I think this is a fine topic to mention in the common app essay, just depends if he shows how it relates to him and how he has overcome it.
Argh… Dont mention ‘transition to adulthood’ for something like this. It is typically reserved for situations like “my siblings and I became orphans and I had to earn money and take care of everything”.
In addition, one should point out that the original intent was good - take control over weight, getting healthy - which then turned into a body building obsession many hours a day, 'road to hell paved with good intentions ’ personified, but he came back from it, hopefully finding balance in various activities. The conclusion should make clear how this balance is achieved in senior year and what it results in concretely, and how that makes the friend a good candidate for a college (in terms of character, self awareness, grit… )
first semester all Bs what will final grades end up? As or Bs?