I'm 9 years out of undergraduate and 6 years out of graduate school. My GPA is the same from both, but I don't think it reflects what I am capable of now for the following reasons:
I had extraordinary obligations during both: for undergrad, I was working 30 hours a week, and added a business minor late, meaning I had to take up to 25 credits some semesters. I was a music major so I dedicated 3-5 hours a day to practicing, leaving not a lot of time to study. During grad, I left a semester early to start a full time job and complete my degrees from the other side of the country while working full time, and prior to that had a mentally ill and emotionally abusive live-in boyfriend (strong lean toward excluding this part--too personal).A lot of time has passed, and I have become much more mature and better at managing my time. My work performance reviews are all stellar, and I have gotten As in the two extension classes I have taken (finance and law related).I know I want to study law, whereas I was not ready to make that same decision about my areas of study of study in U and G.In addition to that, I ended up taking an extra year to complete my graduate program. Basically, I signed up for "independent study" (my job) for a few semesters until I had the time to thoughtfully complete my final paper. It will look like I took three years to complete the program (which, to be fair, ended up in dual degrees). Does this warrant an explanation?
Anyone have any thoughts as to what would be worth including, if anything?
I was on a webinar for working professionals with the admissions dean at UC Berkeley the other day. This was directly addressed. For those with substantial work experience, she said 2 pages is just fine if it is relevant and helpful to painting the picture of who you are, but avoid going over that. FWIW, mine is about 1.5 pages and I have been out of undergrad 9 years.