One of the best things about working with so many Collegewise counselors who had jobs as admissions officers is that they can provide real-life anecdotes to substantiate our advice.
We often discuss with families—and I often write here—that one of the least endearing things a student can do in an application is to try to explain away less-than-stellar grades by blaming the teacher(s).
As one of our counselors described it in an email to our group recently,
The ones that killed me (and this happened more than once) were the students who, when they did not receive the grades they would have liked, assigned blame to their teachers. I definitely wrote that down in the “reasons why we probably would not want this student on our campus” column.
If there’s an explanation for your bad grades, please share it. But there’s a difference between a valid explanation and an excuse. And if you’re blaming someone else, you’re likely edging into excuse territory.