Worth explaining bad semester when there's nothing to say?

[huerita]

I am appling to MPP/IR/MPA programs for next fall. Most schools give you the option of submitting an extra essay to explain anything shady in your background, but I'm wondering if it's always worth it to do so.

I have one bad semester from my junior year. Really bad, actually. 1 F, a C+, and a D+ (and two A-s). But my excuse is of the personal, whiney variety. Basically, right before finals, I found out my boyfriend at the time had cheated on me with one of my friends, went into a tailspin, and totally bombed my finals. If I had been thinking rationally at the time, I could have gone and talked to my professors (especially the one where I got an F - I actually just didn't hand in my term paper...eek!), but that was not my frame of mind unfortunately. The rest of my transcript is As and Bs, in fact, mostly B+ to solid A range.

I know this semester looks really bad, and it's not even from freshman year. But I think the reason for my bad grades is not something I want to bring up in a graduate school application! Is it worth writing something? Can I vaguely allude to personal problems? Or family problems? I graduated in 2010, so it is a few years behind me. I'm just not sure how to address it.

What do you think?

[bamafan]

Since you have Fs and Ds, I would definitely address it; however, I'd probably just describe them as personal relationship problems or something of that nature. I wouldn't go into the specifics you described above. If you can, spin it, ie, despite the personal/family/whatever problems of so and so time, I was able to learn from the experience and persevere to do x, y, z and excel my remaining terms, and whatever else you've done since then.

[staceyjo]

Since it was your Jr year, I'm assuming you did better your Sr year? I'd say, being able to 1. admit you did something wrong and 2. show that you learned from it (by getting good grades the rest of your time there) could only benefit you.

I had a LOT of dropped classes on my transcripts from a random state university and even a semester where I had to withdraw. All of mine were because of medical problems. While I didn't do a separate letter I addressed it in my SOP and tried to spin it to my advantage.

I also left a masters program at the beginning of this year for person and family reasons. I didn't address this at all, 3 of the schools I applied to didn't care. Since I had a 3.4 they knew I could handle grad level work. The 4th school called me and asked for a supplemental letter explaining why I left the first program. I ended up getting accepted to my top 2 schools and withdrew my applications to my safety schools before hearing.