Should discuss 'a bad grade year' in app essay?

jessiehl
Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:35:30 +0000

Yeah, many colleges will let you submit an “additional info” essay or letter that can be used to discuss this, and the GC’s letter can be used to discuss this.

I would imagine that the two rules of thumb on this topic for grad school apps also apply to undergrad apps. They are:


It looks classier to have a recommender (or, for undergrads, GC) talk about a student’s reason for doing poorly (unless perhaps there’s an overcoming-obstacles essay prompt, something that grads don’t usually get).
For discussion of what happened to help more than it hurts, the cause of the problem should be sympathetic, in the past, and unlikely to recur.