Low undergrad GPA/High Masters GPA in SOP

[Meinrad]

Hi friends, 

Working on SOP's for PhD programs and had a question. Common advice is to address any low GPA stuff in your statement of purpose. I have a low undergrad GPA (messed around first two years), but will end my MA with somewhere above a 3.90. Should I still attempt to explain the undergrad low GPA or just let MA GPA, GRE, etc. speak for itself? 

[bhr]

I had a sub 2.5 BS gpa (When I graduated, <2.0 when I applied) and a 4.0 MA GPA. I was told ignore my BS work in my SOP completely

[fides quarens intellectum]

I didn't really have a low GPA in my first undergrad experience (before I changed schools), as it was only around like a 3.3  But I failed four (or five?) classes my final semester at that institution because I really just quit going to class the last month or so and failed them all due to absences.  When I applied well over a decade later, to the same institution (FSU), I did write one or two sentences in my SOP about it.  They admitted me and I was awarded a fellowship in addition to department funding and at no point has anybody ever even asked me about that semester or those classes.  Now, after I left FSU in 2006, I earned a total of one B in every other class I ever took and I had a pretty solid GRE (95% verbal, 98% written).  So I think if you will have a solid GPA on your MA, good GRE, etc. then you ought to be fine. 

Pax,

Luke