<p>Hi all, I<code>m a junior economics major, and I</code>m planning to apply to some graduate schools next year for an econ phd or MA. The problem is I<code>ve got B</code>s on three econ classes. These classes are Intro to Macro Econ, Intro to Micro Econ, and Intermediate Micro Econ. I<code>ve got straight A</code>s or A-<code>s on almost all the other econ classes I</code>ve taken. My current cumulative gpa is around 3.3 and that will be around 3.5 at the end of the fall semester next year.
Some of the colleges I<code>m considering are Uconn, OSU, Indiana, Syracuse, and GWU. Do you think I should give up the graduate school because of those B</code>s? Will they look really bad on my application?</p>
<p>They will not kill your chances. Your grades in math are more important than in econ.</p>
<p>First, the more I look, the more it seems that the average GPA in grad school admissions is about 3.3-3.5; so you are clearly not the only person in the history of grad school admissions to have 3 B's!</p>
<p>Second, something seems wrong with the math here (at least to my math challenged and momentarily very addled brain). I've never had a single A at my current Uni (although several A-'s), a few B's and have a C in a larger credit hour course. So all in all my transcript should look much more dreadful than yours, and I have a 3.2 after one year. Now if you've gotten mostly A's and only those three B's and have three+ years under your belt your GPA should be a little higher than what you're reporting. Are you sure it's only a 3.3? If my math is way off forgive me, like I said I'm not great at math in my head these days...especially not when it's guesstimating.</p>
<p>I think he means 3 Bs in econ classes. I'm sure he has more Bs elsewhere.</p>
<p>right, those B<code>s were just the ones I</code>ve got in econ classes. I have even got a d- and some C<code>s(maybe around 3) in other classes along with b</code>s (mostly intro level first year classes not related to my major) but I have retaken some of them and increased those grades mostly to A-. so that increased my gpa, but those C`s and d are still visible on my transcript along with the newer grades as a policy of my college.</p>
<p>Okay, so if those three are the ones you've had in your econ major that make more sense. But still if you're only consider the econ grades, figure those three B's and the other A's, and you're major GPA (which from what I understand is much more important) is likely to be higher (like 3.6-3.7 assuming about 30 credits as is typical for a "major") so you're still probably in better position than you thought. I really wouldn't worry about those B's being a negative factor.</p>
<p>Seriously, what matter most is what math classes you're taking and what your grades are in those. Especially Real Analysis.</p>