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Certain
aspects of your application may call for an explanation.
For instance:
-
undergraduate grades
- MCAT
scores
-
deficiency in the number of letters of
recommendation submitted
- lack
of work experience
- lack
of extracurricular activities
-
previous rejection of your application
- gaps
in the chronological account of your education or
employment
-
disciplinary action by an institution of higher
education
-
criminal record
Under what
circumstances should you use your personal statement to
explain a particular deficiency, weakness, or other
blemish? First of all, the application might explicitly
invite you to explain deficiencies, weaknesses,
aberrations, or any other aspect of the application that
might not accurately reflect your abilities or potential
and fitness for graduate study. Schools almost without
exception ask specifically about the last two items
above. For the other items, where applications do not
explicitly provide for such explanations, the schools
nevertheless permit and generally encourage applicants
to provide brief explanations. Most schools suggest that
you attach an addendum to your personal statement for
this purpose, reserving the personal statement itself
for positive information about yourself. If you are in
doubt about the policy and preferred procedure of a
particular school, contact the school directly.
Another
point you should keep in mind is whether you have a
valid reason. Staying up late the night before the MCAT
is not a legitimate reason for a bad performance, while
documented sickness could be. A particularly bad
semester could be explained by a death or illness in the
family. If you lack volunteer hospital experience, you
might point out the number of hours you had to work to
make college more affordable for your family.
There are
many more gray areas. For example, is it worth noting
that you simply have a bad history of standardized
testing? Doing so tactfully (in other words, don't rail
against the arbitrariness of tests or demand the right
to be considered for your grades alone) can help the
schools understand your exact situation, but it most
likely won't have a substantial effect on their
perspective, since they know to take into account the
imprecision of standardized tests. What about the class
for which you simply did not grasp the material or a
poor GPA during your freshman year? Again, what you have
to say won't constitute an extenuating circumstance,
since everyone has weaknesses and faces the same
challenge of adjusting to college. Your best approach
might be to try to transform such blemishes into
something positive by pointing out particular courses in
which you performed well, especially those that were
more advanced, more relevant to your intended career
path, or more recent.
Finally,
make sure that you do not take a contentious tone. Don't
accuse your teachers of unfair grading standards or
complain about lack of extracurricular opportunities at
your school. Be clear that you're not trying to excuse
yourself of responsibility, emphasizing that you simply
want the schools to have the complete picture. |
