Explaining poor GPA in SOP

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waitwat
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Joined: Thu Oct 16, 2014 10:47 am

Explaining poor GPA in SOP

Post by waitwat » Thu Nov 13, 2014 1:14 am

Hi! I am an international applicant from India, and will be applying to grad schools in the US for Fall 2015. While I have pretty good GRE scores (332 and 950+ expected), my GPA is kinda terrible.
I double majored in Physics and Electronics Engineering (it's a five year program), and my physics gpa at the time of applying is 8.00/10, while my overall GPA is 7.2/10 (these will be 8.8 and 7.6 at the end of the academic year). I have contacted a few seniors at US unis, and some have suggested that it would be a good idea to explain these low scores. In all honesty, I took up EE thinking I'd enjoy it but found it to be uninteresting compared to physics, so really slacked off there. And while my physics grades could have been better, I got into gaming in the first and second years and that obviously had a negative impact.

Is there any way I could explain this in my SOP without coming off as too desperate, or too negative? How can I put a positive spin on this?



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