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bear with me as i lay this out......i have a question about submitting an additional letter with the application--applying to ivies, bc, bucknell, pennstate, nyu.

SAT 730m 680v--retake on oct 9--will get 1500+.
SAT II Writing 690 Math IC 710 Chem 540 (I know)
in Nov.--Writing 800 IIC 800 US 750+
ACT 30 Comp. (25e, 33m, 31r, 30s)

I have a 2.9 gpa and am ranked appx 75 out of 320 in a public school in nj. Taking 2 aps this year and will get college credit for calc and physics guaranteed.

I have had some "extenuating circumstances" family wise and this has certainly hindered my academic performance. As you can see from my scores, i am obviously not a 2.9 individual.

I am planning on writing a letter that i will include with my application explaining these circumstances. Is this tasteless? Is there a more tactful way that i can go about doing this without seeming like i am only saying it to improve my chances? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

By Voronwe (Voronwe) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Colleges generally do NOT like a low GPA coupled with high scores - to them it reads "slacker." So you should write the letter, but only if you have a really, really, REALLY good excuse -like a truly major disaster, not just a divorce or family job loss, as that happens to gazillions of kids who keep their grades up. It would also help if the GPA was so incredibly low because you had one super bad semester, but before and after that you were an A student. If it was low for all four years, you're in trouble.

Good luck - someone somewhere will see your potential!
(this is from a former Ivy interviewer with many years and friends in the biz).

By Editrix (Editrix) on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 08:04 pm: Edit

It's obviously a good idea to address the disparity between your scores and your grades. But since some schools would prefer not to receive additional materials--or might not even read them--I wonder if the place to do this might be in your essay.

By Lostnconfused (Lostnconfused) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 07:16 pm: Edit

yeah i had a 33 ACT composite and 700 + on all my SAT IIs with a 2.9 GPA at a pretty competitive school and awesome extra currics... im at UC santa cruz right now... the only UC i got into... i got rejected from NYU, BU, Tufts, UCLA, UCSB, UCSD, UCB, American....the list goes on

my choices were SFSU, Sac State, UCSC, U of Colorado Boulder...

yeah.... i dunno... i hope you have better luck than i do. I had some bad circumstances too... and i explained them... the letters dont help that much.

good luck

By Hollywall (Hollywall) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 07:37 pm: Edit

lostnconfused-were u in hard classes?

By Lostnconfused (Lostnconfused) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 10:50 pm: Edit

yup. in all honors freshman year... no APs sophmore year because i messed up freshman year... AP Euro and HOnors Chem junior year... and 4 APs senior year...