Hii I’m an international applicant studying the A-levels. My Further Maths grade dropped from an A* (similar to A+ in US system) to a B, so that means that I dropped by two letter grades. My counselor has already uploaded my mid-year report earlier today and I’m on break starting from tomorrow, so no teachers or counselor working for a whole month. I am very concerned about my grade dropping by this much, since I have applied to multiple ivies and other highly competitive universities (UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cornell, Duke, Babson College, Northwestern, Georgetown, Chicago and also a Canadian university: U of Toronto). I am wondering whether I should send an email to admissions to explain why my grade dropped. Here is what happened:
Three weeks ago, I was supposed to sit my finals, but I got sick (really serious lungs infection) and couldn’t go to school for two weeks. I live in China and we are on Spring Break (which lasts a whole month) after this week, so this week was the last week for my counselor to finish everything for my application. When I came back to school this Monday, I had to sit all my exams although I couldn’t be fully prepared for them because I was basically writhing in bed for two weeks. I got As except for Maths (I had As for all my subjects before, so it’s still a drop in my grades). In the end, it turned out that my Math teacher gave my only TWO hours for my exam when I was supposed to have THREE. Maths was the first exam I sat Monday morning and I didn’t sleep well, so maybe that’s why I didn’t notice it immediately after the teacher collected my papers. Anyway, I found out in the afternoon and went to see the teacher at his office, then he apologized and told me that it wouldn’t affect my grade anyway since he planned to give me the same grade as the one from last October (when I got an A). So, naive as I am, I believed him, let the matter slide and didn’t take my papers back to work on them for another hour. As it turned out, he didn’t keep his promise and gave me a B instead. I know that I am also to blame, since I should have gotten my papers back no matter what he said and there is also the fact that I chose to only sit one Math exam instead of two (I told my teacher that I wasn’t prepared for the other exam since I was sick blabla). So anyway if I were to write an email to the universities, I would say that I am responsible for not being well prepared for my exams and for only sitting one exam for Maths, but taking my illness into consideration and the fact that my teacher didn’t give me the full time, it is unfair to give me a B?? What do you think? I don’t want to sound like I’m giving excuses or complaining (although I guess that is what I’m doing…) PLEASE HELP :((
Please tell me what I should write in my email and whether I should send an email at all. Thanks!! 