Please, Need help: Addendum

silcal11

I am preparing my application (to start LS next year). My question is concerning the addendum: Should I write one? In Peru, I did two years of medical school (1997-1998). Didn't graduate. Students, in Peru, enter medical school directly after high school graduation. Those two years had the equivalent of 22.50 credits of pre-med. My university, here, accepted my credits so I didn't have to take all the credits required for my bachelor degree.
Here comes my issue: First, should I write an addendum about why I chose medical school 18 years ago: I was young and stupid; didn't know what I wanted. Second, during those two years I got most Cs, one A, and one B (GPA 2.5 according my school in the US). I graduated from a FL university with a GPA 4. Do I need to write about why those grades differ so much even though it happened 18 years ago.
My school in FL has the grades and courses from Peru in its transcripts. LSAC also has the transcripts from my Peruvian university (LSAC wanted to do their own evaluation).

Thank you so much for your help

nye8870

http://7sage.com/lesson/when-to-write-a-non-required-addendum/
Not sure if you can access this but 7Sage has a ton of info/help in this regard.

Pacifico

@silcal11 said:
I was young and stupid; didn't know what I wanted.

I think you should write a very brief addendum about the grades since I'm assuming they factored into your LSAC GPA and maybe even your degree GPA at your school, and you could contextualize it in regards to med school not being for you, but I would not use this quote I cited above. You've also put nearly two decades between you and this experience so it's not going to be nearly as important as if you had just dropped out of a US med school (which might appear a bit more flaky without additional context).

You need to view this from an adcom's perspective and 99.999% or more are probably not going to know the ins and outs of Peruvian med schools and how they contrast with American ones. Your addendum should likely just be a paragraph briefly stating the context of how you go to med school after high school in Peru and that it is analogous to just studying pre-med during UG in the US in the beginning. Then just say you learned it wasn't for you and finished up your education in the US later on when you had the opportunity and that those grades are a true reflection of your capabilities. Keep it simple and don't go crazy with it. Just get the pertinent information on the page in the most succinct way possible to meet that goal of filling in the gap in their knowledge of what they are seeing in your file.