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@arielUC25
100 answers, 217 votes
 • 5 years ago •
Admissions Advice
[edited]

Will choosing credit/no credit over letter grade options hurt my college admissions chances?

Am wondering about schools like CMU, Harvard, UC Berkeley

sorry lemme elaborate on my school's policy: core subjects (for me math, physics, English) are letter grade only. Electives like Spanish are credit/no credit unless we request them not to be. So should I keep my Spanish grade? Also, Spanish only had one test for the whole semester, meaning that 75% of my grade is based on a single assessment. So does that count as accessibility or not?

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[🎤 AUTHOR]@arielUC255 years ago

I have one B in Spanish 3 and it would drag down my GPA from a 4.6 to a 4.25

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@cp839
74 answers, 121 votes
 • 5 years ago

All colleges have said they'll be understanding of any grading policy adopted by your school. That said if you have the option to receive a letter grade, that's likely what they expect. I have the same policy at my school and although some wish to manipulate their GPA, I think colleges will see it as hiding something if you pick and choose certain courses. The only reason you should choose pass fail is if you have an issue with accessibility.

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[🎤 AUTHOR]@arielUC255 years ago [edited]

sorry lemme elaborate on my school's policy: core subjects (for me math, physics, English) are letter grade only. Electives like Spanish are credit/no credit unless we request them not to be. So should I keep my Spanish grade? Also, Spanish only had one test for the whole semester, meaning that 75% of my grade is based on a single assessment. So does that count as accessibility or not?

@cp8395 years ago

Ok that's tough. I would wait for input from other people. It also can't hurt to ask your teacher and/or guidance counselor. At my school we were allowed to improve our grades after we got out from school so it's different.

@DebaterMAX5 years ago

So Ive done some college admission webinars and got a few admission counselor emails and I emailed them and of the 2 Ive heard back from 1 kinda danced around my question (he said that GPA isn't the only thing taken into consideration) the other said they would keep everything in mind.

For reference, one school is private and average GPA of 3.5 ish the other public tech institute 4 years and GPA of 3.8

[🎤 AUTHOR]@arielUC255 years ago

Update: I am going to pick letter grade option... There's no point in hiding a B and UC says they won't factor this semester in for GPA so....

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