I believe I have support from a couple of lecturers at my Undergraduate University so I should be covered there but I really supect I will be having to do damage control whatever my University says. Beyond that a lot of the improvement I need now is down to me getting some experience.

My main concern at the moment is approaching an application without going to the extreme of saying it was x,y and z was the blame but I have to explain it at some point because I have a half a year which has 0%s across the board because I withdrew from a semester and then took the following semester off before repeating the one I withdrew from on my official transcript. (That was just a brief overview just x)

Therefore, I have been toying with the idea of including a short insert in my personal statement which says (and this is a rough draft) "While my undergraduate degree was marred with issues which became a contributing factor towards my final degree outcome, I am keen to move beyond these blemishes and prove myself as a enthusiast student that has used my gap years as a worthwhile experience that would benefit me as a student at X University" or something to that effect. I would then go on to discuss what I have done since my degree, what I have learned from these experiences and where this is leading me and how it would link into my Masters at that particular University.

What do you think about this? I suppose I can answer questions about X,Y and Z at any interviews I get but I don't want to be shown the reject pile from day 1 because of my official transcript.

I am currently putting together my application for my Masters. I am predicting issues in getting into my primary choices because I missed the required grade for most of these though there were issues in my life, including medical and financial, which hit me during the latter half of my degree.

While I am not making excuses for my results completely and my issues is a long story, my grade average each year dropped several percentage though I did score, in at least some modules, consistently with my first year. It was my final year that hit me hard because my final projects both weighed a lot – a big mistake on my part to choosing to do that given that had happened earlier on in my degree.

I am still wanting to do a Masters . However, I know I screwed up my Undergraduate and now have to put an application together which will at least get me considered. I am getting more experience to boost it (I went to America for the Summer to study) but I have a bad case of writer’s block relating to my personal statement.