<p>This semester I got a C in my programming class. I'm a freshman and this was a C++ class taken mainly by sophomores and juniors -- I took it because I had the AP credit and my adviser really wanted me to take it. I'm applying as a transfer for this fall (and yes, I know that transfer admissions are ridiculously difficult and unpredictable). Within a reasonable idea of MIT's expectations for capable transfer applicants, did this completely blow my chances?</p>
<p>Also, I heard MIT is mainly Python-based and does relatively little with C++. Is this true? If so, would my bad grade count as much because it was for a class in C++ (a much harder language than Python)?</p>
<p>While MIT is mostly in Python, MIT classes focus on learning how to program well, not on learning programming languages. If you don’t know a language you’ll be expected to pick it up within the first two weeks of the class.</p>
<p>No, you did not blow your chances. Don’t get any more Cs. If you want to make up for your C, take a harder computer science class, possibly at a local university, and get an A. Or take the AP Computer Science exam and get a 5. Preferably do both.</p>
<p>Cool. Thanks for the feedback. I’m taking a much harder programming class next semester (a sort of extension of the first), and I hope to do well.</p>
<p>What did you find difficult about the course, and what do you think will change?</p>
<p>Hi Piper,</p>
<p>The course was difficult for everyone in my class, and is notoriously one of the hardest programming classes at my college. The average was around 60%–and that was for sophomore and junior CS majors. I took it as a first semester freshman. It was essentially designed to force you into the jump to advanced programming in a soul-crushing way; you were expected to get a bad grade, and almost everyone did. It was like scaling a sheer cliff face as opposed to hiking up a mountain trail. To save you a lot of whining, the tests and programming assignments were just brutal. You were required to use C++ in roundabout and inefficient ways to demonstrate a concept (like building a database with linked lists or using an overloaded binary operator class function to increment a list of objects). It was just a very hard, advanced class and you were expected to learn a lot of things on your own outside of material discussed in lecture, and wage week-long battles with confounding compiler error messages.</p>
<p>In short, I’m just afraid MIT will look at the C as a sign of weakness or incompetence, when in fact it is just a characteristic of surviving the class at my school, nevermind as a freshman. I could have easily taken the programming class a step down from this one and gotten an A, but I wouldn’t have learned anything. I wish there was some way I could convey to them that I value learning and challenging myself over taking easier classes for the sake of a transcript. I guess that’s the price of being an academic masochist.</p>
<p>Anyway, next semester I’m going to get help immediately if I don’t understand something. That was a huge mistake of mine last semester.</p>
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</p>
<p>… welcome to every MIT CS class ever?</p>
<p>I’m curious about the 60% indicator. 60% means approximately nothing, here. Is this a D/F, as one might expect of a high school class? Is it a C? Does your university have consistent standards, and are classes not allowed to be curved in any way?</p>
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<p>This is every single technical class at MIT, including required courses you generally take as a freshman. Granted, the freshmen here have one semester of pass/no record to learn this lesson without getting poor grades ;)</p>
<p>If your adviser - or whoever is writing your recommendation letters - is willing to talk about how this is a junior/senior course and that you did admirably as a freshman in it, that would be a huge plus to counter this. If you can get a breakdown of the class, that might be useful too (ie, if most of the juniors/seniors ended up with C’s, that shows you weren’t really worse).</p>
<p>But again, keep in mind that you will be taking multiple of these kinds of courses if you do end up at MIT. (At MIT, must of us experience a learning curve like this, so don’t take that as a reason to change your mind - I just want to make sure courses like this are what you expect. You’ll learn a lot and you’ll get your butt kicked. If you keep going, you will eventually get a handle on it. You just have to decide if that’s what you want.)</p>
<p>Yay! I just love MIT!!!</p>
<p>Piper:
This is exactly why I’m applying as a transfer to MIT. Put simply, I love getting my butt kicked, and I am completely aware that all of the classes at MIT are like this. I don’t expect to be spoon-fed in any way. I’m a regular on OCW and take MITx classes. Yes, I got a C in the class, but so did many other people four or five semesters ahead of me. I think that might say a lot.</p>
<p>Also, I’m very used to this learning format. This semester I also took advanced classical mechanics, which is one of the hardest physics classes at my school (only taken by junior and senior physics majors), and teaching myself was all I did. My high school never offered any AP physics classes, or BC calculus, so I had to work very hard to keep up with everyone else. OCW was a total godsend. I had to interview the instructor to get in the class, because I didn’t have any of the prerecs, but he was pretty awesome and let me in. By the end of the semester, I was doing triple integrals and Maclaurin approximations of hyperbolic trig functions and all sorts of insane stuff. I actually got a B in the class. It was pretty awesome and I’m going to ask my physics professor to put in a recommendation for me.</p>
<p>HikaruYami:
Yes, the class was curbed, because almost everyone was failing. Before the curb the average was around a 60% (D), from what I had heard from other people taking the class (it was small, around 20 people). As for consistent standards at my school, I’m not sure what you mean. Some classes are curbed and some aren’t, depending on the professor and how hard the class is. I go to a small liberal arts school, not a rigorous STEM powerhouse, and I don’t know if this will help or hurt me.</p>
<p>Quiverfox:
Same! MIT is a total dream to me. I applied as a freshman last year but didn’t make it. This summer I visited the campus while seeing my extended family in Boston. I was sort of reminded of a quote from Gattaca (one of my favorite movies): “I was never more certain of how far away I was from my goal than when I was standing right beside it”.</p>