<p>If I used the additional information section on the common application to explain some lower grades, would they have a negative impression (like I’m making up excuses)?</p>
<p>To give more context, I had to miss some time from school for family reasons, and I ended up missing two exams, and this was towards the end of the semester so I had to play catch-up and also prepare for my finals. My grades dropped by 2/3’s of a letter grade in two classes.</p>
<p>If you have a valid reason for why your grades are lower than they should be, you should use it. If you just have some excuse because you don’t think you could have done badly on your own merits, you shouldn’t. Which one of those categories your explanation fits in is something you have to decide; we just can’t know all the circumstances surrounding it.</p>
<p>Skip the excuses, everyone has a reason they didn’t do as well as they might have. If there was a truly unusual situation such that’s one thing–but keep in mind lots of lots of kids have many family issues.</p>