low GPA explanation

pmcharkins
Sun, 04 Feb 2007 23:45:53 +0000

I wrote a letter to my top school (USC) in order to explain a low GPA (the weakest part of my application) throughout most of high school and I was wondering how much leeway will it give me or will it even make a difference in their decision???

the letter was about my mom being sick throughout high school, she experienced 4 major heart attacks, two of which were followed by short comas, one was in the beginning of sophomore year, two in junior year, and one during finals week senior year. After these events she was basically in bed all day long because of the heavy medication she was on and I decided to sacrifice after school time to do pretty much all household work: dishes, laundry, cooking, etc. in addition to this, I had to find time to keep up with varsity cross country training and honors/ap coursework.

My GPA is 3.413 unweighted and 3.95 weighted (all honors included)

Thanks for the input