Hey everyone!
I am a community college sophomore applying as a rising junior at some T20 universities.
Last semester I lost my 4.00 GPA after earning my first B in a Linear Algebra / Diff Eq’s course. Assuming I finish this semester with all A’s I will be applying to universities with a 3.94=3.96/4.00 GPA.
Disregarding all other factors (test scores, extracurriculars, letters of rec, etc…) when applying to top universities such as UCLA, UCB, Columbia, UChicago and a couple others, How greatly will my B affect my chances?
TL;DR Are top colleges likely to take a 4.00 over a 3.95 ceteris paribus. Or is a 3.95 and 4.00 typically looked at in the same way?
What is your intended major? What schools do you expect to be applying to?
If you were a math major applying to MIT or Caltech, then I would be concerned about that B. If you were an English major applying to Brown, I probably would be less concerned.
Of course you are going to need to apply to safeties regardless of the answers. I do not think that any top 20 university is a safety for anyone, except perhaps a straight A child of a popular president or Nobel prize winner.
Thanks for the reply!
I have guaranteed acceptance to my safety schools through a California community college program, I am aware of the admissions prospects at t20 schools for transfers haha.
I am applying as an Economics major, therefore mathematics will be part of my curriculum but not to the extent of diff eq’s at most schools.
Reach schools I plan on applying to: Columbia, UCLA, UCB, UChicago, Cornell, Stanford and Dartmouth.
Again, I am not looking for any admissions prospects, simply just information as to if these top schools would take another identical applicant over myself due to the .05 GPA difference
I think that it is hard to say. Given that you are in at your safeties, and given the quality of the California public universities, I think that you can apply, relax, and see what happens.
I was a math major. In graduate school (master’s program) I had a chance to take a very small number of electives. I took econometrics. I loved it. However, it was one of the harder math courses that I took with very extensive use of linear algebra. On the other hand, I am not sure that I actually deserved anything more than a B in linear algebra until I took econometrics – it wasn’t until I used it that I really understood linear algebra.
By the way, congratulations on your very strong showing in community college. Going to community college and acing everything is a great way to start a good and very economical education.
I mean, people arent perfect & sometimes getting a B is unavoidable. I once was told all semester by a teacher that I had the highest grade in class which was probably and A, then he gave me a B. I still had the highest grade in the class, which irked me. I calculated it multiple ways which all came out to me having an A, but he disagreed for whatever reason that I don’t know. Your college essays, extracurriculars, and campus involvement will be more important with a 3.95
They see enough 4.0 people, that if you don’t have anything outside of just getting straight As, they dont care how hard you worked. They’d rather have a 3.95 who did more than study/homework, than a 4.0 who thought that was all they needed to do.
For UCs, you can see admit and enroll GPA range of transfer students by campus and major at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major . The ranges are middle 50%.
Economics is one of the more popular majors at UCB and UCLA, with the top 25% of of the admit GPA range being 4.00.
Economics at UCB does have a more-math option (courses 101A, 101B, 141 instead of 100A, 100B, 140) that may be more suited for students who like math or are going on to PhD study in economics (additional math and statistics courses are also recommended). UCLA has a math/economics major as well.
Stanford takes very few transfer students, and some of its announcements suggest that it emphasizes non-traditional students: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/11/01/small-mighty-cohort-transfer-students-joins-stanford-community/