My friend and I are taking a High School Course, Algebra 1. I am an A student, while he has a B or B- in the class. He was wondering and I was also curious that will a B allow you to go to a prestigious college such as Stanford, Harvard, etc.?
By the way, we both are 8th graders!
First of all, colleges generally don’t see 8th grade transcripts at all. Even in high school classes, a B or two or three will not hurt your chances. A baseline for unhooked, non-recruited applicants would be approximately a 3.8+/4.0 UW GPA in rigorous classes
Yes
In which case, no college will care about the grades from an 8th grade course, even if the course gives HS credit.
That said, a B in 8th grade requires a better strategy than simply wishin’ and hopin’ that there will be no B’s (or minimal B’s) in HS.
I’m not sure if this is just curiosity on your part or if you and you friend are already stressing about college admissions … but a couple of comments and some unasked for advice:
You can make straight As throughout all of your life including High School and still not make it into Harvard. In fact most students with perfect academic records won’t get into Harvard because so many of them apply there. Some kids with imperfect records will get in. There are no guarantees.
There are many, many, many “good schools” and starting out by defining academic success as getting into Harvard or Stanford will limit you.
The most prestigious schools are looking for a strong, consistent and rigorous academic record plus … that plus means you need to have something else they value, whether it be a talent, an outstanding achievement in one area, outside / side activities. Don’t obsess over grades to the exclusion of everything else.
Life is short. Live your life, do your best in high school, follow your passions with energy and see what colleges fit you when you get to junior year.
Good luck in High School and beyond!
Everything @CaMom13 said and more.
Please, please do focus on your grades, but do not stress about them. Get good grades–yes, for college–but above all because you love learning and you are doing your duty to do well in school. Getting into college will disappear after a while, but the hard work ethic you develop during your schooling years will aid you for the rest of your life.
That said, I have a great friend (class valedictorian) who had a B and C on her transcript. She is attending Stanford in the fall and was waitlisted at Harvard. Got into numerous prestigious LACs. But she has a strong work ethic and I think the schools that accepted her saw her very insightful nature (comes through in interviews and essays.)
You probably can. In our high school grades from 8th grade for high school level courses both appear on the transcript and will effect the overall GPA. If the person does well in later math courses it is unlikely to have much of an adverse effect.
@Potatoes22 Here is what Harvard is really looking for: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/apply/what-we-look/valuing-creative-reflective
Mantra for the HS student:
Do not think 'Every point I get off of a homework or test is a point away from going to Harvard."
Think: “I need to do my best, and there will be a college that is right for me when I graduate.”
Do not think “If I don’t go to an Ivy League School/Top20, I am doomed forever.”
Think: “No matter where I go, I can bloom where I am planted. I can get involved and shine.”
Do not think: “My life is over…the kid in my math class is taking 20 APs and I am taking 5. I will never succeed.”
Think: “I need to challenge myself, but only to the point where I can still do well.”
That’s not the only Harvard “what we look for.”
Lots of resources from the colleges, don’t stop at any one.
OP, too soon to worry. You don’t get in because you have a 4.0. It takes a lot more for any tippy top. Learn what that is. Remember, they’re holistic. Learn what that means.
@lookingforward “OP, too soon to worry. You don’t get in because you have a 4.0. It takes a lot more for any tippy top. Learn what that is. Remember, they’re holistic. Learn what that means.”
Good advice but where do you recommend students look to find out exactly what colleges are looking for in their applicants?
The colleges’ web sites, press releases, course lists. dept blurbs, and more from them.
Lots of people disagree,of course.
The rare B will not greatly affect your chances. While I encourage you not to stress about colleges yet, I’d recommend that you read How to Be a High School Superstar if you want some insight into standing out in the college admissions process- I found it helpful.
One of the things that does get you into top colleges is SAT/ACT scores. My kid had A’s in math all through high school but it was a struggle. He had a very bad math teacher in 6th grade and we did not discover until late that he never truly learned many of the base concepts for some mathematical formulas. So when time came to take the tests, he was missing some of the easy early questions, or taking longer on them than he should, because Mrs. K was a crappy teacher and he got anxious whenever he encountered those concepts.
So if your friend has a B it won’t hurt him directly, but if that B is because he’s not really learning something properly then it could come back to bite him when standardized testing comes around. It’s important to study to learn that stuff instead of just memorize for the test, because some of those concepts are building blocks for stuff that comes later.
A B on math in high school is a big mark for schools like Harvard. You have to have something else to compensate for it.
Like @hzhao2004
Why, in the name of all that is good and beautiful, have you decided to ruin the next four years of your life?
Read @bopper’s post. Then read it again.
I know that there are people on CC who truly believe that the culmination of any kid’s dream should be attending a Very Prestigious College. They will advise you to forget about doing anything because you love it, forget about ever achieving something for the sake of the achievement, to forget about doing anything because it helps others. They will recommend that you Only Take Classes That Ivies Like, they will advise you to Only Do Extracurricular Activities Which Ivies Like, and that your ONLY measure of success is being accepted into a Very Prestigious College.
A little secret: even if being accepted to Harvard was indeed Something Great, it is absolutely not something on which it is worth wasting more than half of your teen years. However, despite the fact that so many people on CC act as though the T-20 colleges were a mix of Elysium, Paradise, Mt Olympus, and Valhalla (though with academics instead of axes), they really aren’t. Harvard students aren’t happier or more satisfied than the students of at least another 1,000 colleges in the USA. I know that there are people here who will shout “blasphemy” at this, but True Believers are impervious to facts and statistics. Ignore them.
College is not a goal. College is a means to achieve your goals.
College is not a goal. College is a means to achieve your goals
Plan your high school years so that you can look back on them and say “I did something”, no matter WHICH college you will attend. Plan your high school years so that you will be a better and smarter person as a senior than you were as a freshman.
Do not become one of the kids who starts a thread on CC with “everything I did in high school is absolutely meaningless, because didn’t get into a T-20”. Please, please please, do not become one more kid who breaks because they cannot deal with years of stress and anxiety that comes from “I need to have everything perfect so that I get into a a top college”.
There’s a difference between being uber focused on a tippy top, to your own detriment, vs examining what it takes.
Yes, lead a balanced life. But like many pursuits, it’s not just about what you dream of, but how you learn and apply efforts toward your goals.
That’s neither leaning back nor so focusing on a 13 year old’s ‘dreams’ that you lose all sense of persective. It’s ok to be properly informed. Then, to be able to assess.