Rashi Jain

This is such an interesting question. I've thought about it a lot before coming to this decision. I've also faced some issues during my undergraduate degree which led to 'that good of a GPA'. However, I am deciding that I wouldn't make a mention of it in my application. Surely I'd try to address the GPA and mention how I've filled the missing knowledge, however putting it on personal issues seems a bit too much to me. We all face issues in our life and we'll continue to face them: in one way or the other. Surely some of us are more sensitive to our environment than the others and thus end up having to go through a little bit more than others, but such problems will continue in grad school too. I can't go into the mindset of people in graduate school admission committee, but personally I don't think your personal issues should be an excuse for your professional performance. If they've been, than you should find ways to not let them be and make a demonstrate that in your statement of purpose. Also including them might tone your application down a bit. Seeing that it's necessary to make a mention of it, I would only briefly address it and glorify the other strong points of the application.