This may sound silly or indicate the naivety of youth, but I did not know I was a student for the first 40 semester hours of my undergraduate education. These first 40 credits were all taken over a period of 6 months in a fully military setting at 10-12 hours of classes per day plus military activities on top of that. My GPA for these first 40 credits was around a 3.3 - not terrible, but drastically different from the 4.0 I have maintained since. Additionally, while in that program, none of the instructors or platoon sergeants told us that the program was awarding us credits at an undergraduate institution. These are credits taken in a military setting, but assigned to an actual transcript so I know they will count towards my overall GPA, but would this be something to justifiably address in a secondary application? I did poorly in those classes because I didn't know I was a student until after the classes were taken? Comparatively, I was still 4th out of 50 people in the class, as it was a very intense class/military regiment but still....And it is obvious on my transcript when I learned I became a student, because the transcript goes from a 3.3 for the first 40 credits to a 4.0 during the second half (20 credits) of the program. Because of this, My cGPA is/will be a 3.65 however my sGPA is/will be a 3.97.
Please let me know if and/or how I should address this in my application this coming cycle.
