<p>After looking at the thread Michael Woods started "For those who want to know their chances at Caltech" or whatever it was....I feel discouraged. It said getting Bs in math/science courses "just looks bad."</p>
<p>I got 3's Bs in total...a B+ in AP Stats and B in AP Physics for the second semester (Got As in the first semester)</p>
<p>But I also got a B+ in the senior year first semester of AP Chem...yeah, I never really care about grades.
I'm still ranked 4 out of 490 though.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it. You already turned your app in, right? No one here is going to be able to tell you whether you’ll get in to Caltech definitively, which makes this obsessing over grades pretty pointless. </p>
<p>Seriously, relax.</p>
<p>On a related note, I got a B on Calc 3 last semester. How much do you think this will affect my application (I am a sophomore in high school).</p>
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<p>It probably does for a school like Caltech, but don’t let this get you down. Caltech is a very hard school to get into, and if your high school record didn’t actually reflect your potential as a scientist/mathematician/engineer, keep working and you’ll become a great one if it’s really your thing. Caltech may be much more cautious simply because of the nature of the school, and if the B’s WERE to reflect your math/science potential adequately, you’d be miserable there.</p>
<p>“I’m still ranked 4 out of 490 though.” – that might be helpful to you. See, some schools (like my old HS) practice rampant grade inflation, such that pretty much anybody who tried got straight A’s. Class ranks were almost strictly based on the incredibly broken weighting system (5.0 instead of 4.0 for A’s in “honors”/“AP”/“IB” classes), so the top ranks generally went to people who gamed the system to get the most weighted and fewest unweighted classes.</p>
<p>If you’re at a school where your class rank can still be strong despite a few blemishes, I would hope that admissions could see that this most probably means that your school is “harder” and doesn’t give free A’s to everybody.</p>
<p>Well to be honest, the Bs in these courses will probably decrease your chances by a bit at a school like caltech, but if these Bs are just a “one-off” thing, then you shouldn’t worry too much about them. After all, people generally applying to caltech are those who have great SATs and grades, but the things that make people stand out from the crowd are their passions, ECs and essays.</p>
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<p>From Quantum’s previous posts, I believe he had some unfortunate personal situations that led to these, and doesn’t believe his high school’s difficulty is likely to blame. </p>
<p>Otherwise, sure, that would be the logical assessment.</p>
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<p>The question is how far they’re willing to risk it though. I’d be willing to place my confidence in Quantum that these school blemishes don’t reflect any inability to handle Caltech level work, but the question is what he provided on the application that would convince them. My impression is Caltech is not the sort of school where one can do almost anything (rather, it is targeted for a special audience), and the admissions policies are a little more rigid correspondingly. I’m sure if QA has other convincing evidence that Caltech shouldn’t be worried, he’ll be duly considered.</p>
<p>I do agree with you, mathboy98. Caltech is the place for people who truly love math and science! Anyway QuantumArbiter has SAT scores above the Caltech average and he has really wonderful science ECs and awards (if you look through his past “chances” threads), so he shouldn’t be worried about the Bs at all. In fact, based on his profile, I do feel he is a good fit for Caltech.</p>
<p>heh, I hope not. I got a B in Linear Algebra during the summer, but I didn’t really explain it in my app. I figured the A’s in Calc1/2/3 and Diff Eq would show it off as a sort of “isolated” occurence, but anyways there’s nothing we can do now but wait.</p>