Should I write a GPA Addendum? Forum

[chanelnumber666]

Hello all,

I am graduating in about a month with around a 3.79 if I get the grades that I am predicting this semester. I am taking this upcoming year off and applying next cycle. I know a 3.79 is not bad by any means, but I got very sick spring of junior year (this is TMI but I got sepsis from leaving a tampon in for too long) and was hospitalized for over a month. My grades dipped for two semesters, though I never got anything below a B. I guess I'm concerned that if I write one it'll come off as though I'm super Type A and cry and complain about any grade that isn't perfect. That isn't the case at all, though my GPA would've been somewhere in the ballpark of 3.9 if I hadn't gotten sick. I'm also wondering how much of the specifics of my illness I should get into. I don't want adcoms to think that this will be some mysterious ongoing issue that affect my law school performance, but I also don't want them to think that I slacked off second semester junior and first semester senior year or give them unnecessary info given the nature of what happened.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[cavalier1138]

No. It's not going to help.

But if you do, please keep the details to "I had sepsis." Do not, under any circumstances, give as much detail as you did here.

[Sls17]

No. It's not going to help.

But if you do, please keep the details to "I had sepsis." Do not, under any circumstances, give as much detail as you did here.

This seems a little dramatic — I don’t think a dean of admissions is going to faint at the word “tampon” — but I do agree that the details aren’t necessary. I’d probably write a very short statement identifying a brief dip in your grades as a result of an extended illness requiring hospitalization from which you have since fully recovered. (Or do nothing — also fine.)