GPA addendum - two undergrad degrees and downwards trend

[jrafert]

Greetings,

First of all thank you for reading, I have read through some of the recent posts and I know that there are quite a few about GPA addenda. My situation is somewhat strange.

I am a non-traditional student (10 + years out of undergrad) who did an undergraduate degree in the United States before moving abroad and doing another undergrad degree and a graduate degree.

I am very worried about the impact that my foreign transcript evaluation from CAS will impact my applications. The CAS evaluation equated my foreign undergraduate grade average to "B" level work and called my performance "above average." However they evaluated my performance during my first year of grad school as "C" level work and, for reasons I don't quite understand, classified my first year of graduate study as "undergraduate level work" even though the program I was enrolled in was a master's program (it went back up to a "B Minus" and "above average" my final year of grad school, which they correctly classified as graduate level work).

Normally I would just bet on them looking mainly at my American grades. However my situation is even more complicated by the fact that the school I completed my first undergraduate degree at in the United States did not offer grades (they did narrative evaluations). The evaluations are generally very positive but I have no GPA.

So, I am considering writing an addendum to address the "C" average. While I completed my degrees, I was also supporting myself by working almost full time. The year that I got a "C" average I had a course load of 10 classes my first semester and 8 classes my second semester, and I ended up "picking my battles" so to speak - I concentrated my efforts on the classes I was able to attend with my scheduling constraints and did not invest in the ones that I could not attend regularly. The result is a grade pattern where I have As and Bs in the classes I was able to attend and D/F in the ones I missed a lot.

The addenda would go something like this: "I would like to address my performance while completing my degrees abroad. Between (dates), I was working 35 hours a week. I was unable to attend all of the 10 classes due to scheduling constraints and my grades suffered, as can be seen in the significant discrepancies between classes I was able to attend and classes I was not consistently able to attend. My performance was also impacted by the fact that my classes and coursework were in my second language. I feel that my undergraduate evaluations from ________ college (american undergrad institution) more accurately reflect my academic abilities as I was not dealing with the above mentioned constraints while completing my first degree.

"I understand that law school is a serious commitment and this problem will not arise again as I am prepared to dedicate myself full-time to my studies while completing my JD. "

Any input would be welcome. Thank you again.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Jrafert,

Your situation is almost perfect for an addendum. An academic addendum is really the best place to explain a situation that is not reflective of your overall abilities. In your case, it sounds like your graduate and second undergraduate degrees were not ideal situations. The key to a great addendum is that it's sufficiently explanatory and that the tone is appropriate.

Your proposed addendum does a really good job of setting an appropriate tone. You want to make sure you aren't using the addendum to vent or complain about your situation, which you don't. You answer the question that will be on the reviewer's mind: "Why were those grades low?" and you have some compelling reasons for the low grades. Both the work hours as well as the language barrier are compelling reasons alone. Together, they make a strong argument for why those grades are indicative of your overall promise as a law student.

One of the things a good addendum does, however, is address how you addressed the problem. I see that you improved your second year of your program. Did you make any changes after your first year that improved your grades? Did you find a way to balance work/school differently? Did you spend more time with the second language? Think a bit about what changed between the two years. It might allow you to add a sentence about learning from your mistakes, and how you plan to take those lessons in to your legal education.

Best of luck!
Rachael

[jrafert]

Hi Rachael!

Thank you very much for your input - I know that Powerscore gets a lot of questions about addenda, and I appreciate that you took the time to respond (and did so quickly) anyways.

I feel confident now in my decision to write an addendum and I will try to work in the elements you suggested.