Yet another question about an addendum...

[lazybum]

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[midjeep]

I think it might harm you in the end. Usually the addendum is used to explain a discrepency or provide clarity. Normally when you use the addendum to explain an LSAT, you use your GPA as an evidentary counter to explain your scholastic aptitude and potential in law school. Remember, law schools receive hundreds of these addendum statements and they usually come off as complaints and excuses. If you have what is essentially an excuse for your LSAT AND GPA, the ad com will begin to question whether or not your worth it as a student if you have an explanation for every little problem. Saying that you didnt care about grades would look poorly on you as a potential student. True, you can say that in law school you will care or work harder, but so does EVERY student in that situation. They can read from your resume that you were productive in other venues other than academics. If I were you, I would be as descriptive as possible on the resume. It's not a business resume to where you have to be totally succinct and have neat little bullet points; a law school is going to appreciate a short resume, but are going to prefer a resume where activities are explained to an additional addendum that they are going to have to read. 

[lazybum]

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[!@#$%]

Have you recently finished undergrad, or do you have some solid work experience under your belt?

[jacy85]

People worrying about grades generally seem to have one horrendous semester, or more, and tend to have gpas below a 3.0.  I really don't think your reasons would provide good evidence.  "I overextended myself" is not a great excuse.  Yes you worked full time, but you could have chose to work and study, and not do tons in the community as you mentioned.  But that's not what you did.  You consistantly didn't make studying a huge priority (not that a 3.0 is bad at all!!  I don't mean it to sound like that...) and chose other experiences instead, which I think would be clear in your resume and/or personal statement.  An addendum won't help all that much for your situation, IMO.

[!@#$%]

I think Jacy's right.  You wouldn't really have anything to say in an addendum that isn't covered elsewhere.  I think addenda are generally for explaining big grade discrepancies that aren't self-explanatory (i.e. My mom died in the middle of my sophomore year at around the same time I lost my leg to a flesh-eating bacterium that I contracted while saving my younger brother from drowning in a flood.)  If your GPA doesn't take any drastic swings (more than, say, .75) between one year and the next, then just lay off.

[lazybum]

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