<p>I received two B+'s in my previous term after a string of As. It was a terrible term - I decided to challenge myself by taking more classes and I felt terribly homesick after not seeing my family for 8 months. 3 months have passed since I received the grades and I'm still feeling disappointed. I hope to enter graduate school, and the two courses aren't even related to my major. Any advice?</p>
<p>Whoever looks at your transcript should see the heavier courseload represented by the higher number of credits. On the bright side, it should appear that you were willing to challenge yourself.</p>
<p>Yeah, man up and realize you aren't going to get straight A's in college unless you're completely antisocial or you go to a school that's a complete joke.</p>
<p>lol you can't get rid of grade obsession. Been there, tried that. Just embrace it and use it to its full potential; you won't regret it. Plus, you have 168 hrs in a week; even if you studied 60hrs/week, you would still have ample time to socialize.</p>
<p>I do embrace it but I think my obsession is bordering on insanity. It's not good for my health. The stress would sometimes spoil the day, or distract me from my work, or leave me unmotivated, or render me anti-social. I guess my bigger failure is my inability to pick myself up and learn from my mistakes. I'd like to learn that and to learn to take life less seriously. I need more optimism.</p>
<p>funny that you say that because I received two B+'s in my previous term after a string of As. It was a terrible term - I decided to challenge myself by taking more classes and I felt terribly homesick after not seeing my family for 8 months. 3 months have passed since I received the grades and I'm still feeling disappointed. I hope to enter graduate school, and the two courses aren't even related to my major. Any advice?</p>
<p>How is it terrible that you got two B+'s? ...i'm pretty sure you were trying your best so just accept it for what it is, nothing can be perfect 100% of the time</p>
<p>Maybe it's because you take it way too seriously. I obsess, but I don't get upset by every little mistake I make. I just keep studying until I get A's. There's nothing stressful about studying in and of itself unless you hate the subject. Its just a mind game really. When you have an exam, you can think, "Oh ****, I must get that A", hence feeling stress, or you can think,"well I'm just going to go all out studying and see what happens", boosting your adrenaline and focus. And about those B+s, well, there's not much you can do about them now. Don't have regrets. Focus on the future.</p>
<p>sometimes you'll have a teacher that has a vendetta against you (believe me, it happens) and won't give you an A no matter how hard you work. just realize grades are a crapshoot and the amount of work you put in doesn't necessary reflect the grade. i've barely done any work and gotten As in college, while worked my butt off and got a B+.</p>
<p>Dude, you got Bs. There is nothing wrong with that. Grad schools don't expect perfect GPAs. For God's sake, you're not in high school anymore.</p>
<p>Does that help?</p>
<p>
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Plus, you have 168 hrs in a week; even if you studied 60hrs/week, you would still have ample time to socialize.
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</p>
<p>Umm, add in sleep (ideally 8 hours a night for a total of 56, realistically maybe 40), plus extracurriculars and work, and you've got that pretty whittled down. I'm obviously not anti-studying, I just want people to know realistically what they're up against and set their priorities. Personally socializing is rather low on mine.</p>
<p>Seriously, grad schools (even the top ones) don't expect you to have a perfect GPA. Just get over it.</p>
<p>I'm in therapy for grade obsession, I'll let you know if it helps.</p>
<p>People get accepted to Med school with C's D's and E's every year... get over a B+ ... jesus christ</p>
<p>I’m currently in the same boat. I cannot get over my grades. I have straight A’s right now as an undergraduate student. My teacher posted grades tonight- I currently have a 91% weighted grade in my chemistry class and I almost broke out in tears. The anxiety I am experiencing hurts me. The thing is I still have until December to bring my grade up but I have such a heavy weight on me right now.</p>
<p>Seems a lot people are having similar issues. Perhaps I can set your mind at ease. Grades are trivial… in that nobody in the entire world cares what your grades are except you, so don’t let them cause to you to experience life negatively. </p>
<p>I don’t believe it really helps much to have a higher GPA either. Grad schools and employers will likely look at this, but it primarily a ‘good enough’ factor for all but perhaps the very selective institutions.</p>
<p>I got an A- my first semester of college in an elective art class I took for fun. I was angry. It ruined my 4.0 right off the bat, and I’d never gotten anything below an A since middle school gym class. (I also couldn’t get a straight answer out of the prof. as to WHY, since I had only gotten positive feedback all semester. I decided to chalk it up to being the only non-art major in the class to make myself feel better.)
But after that, I found it got easier. When I got an A- in my first semester of organic chemistry, I was much more accepting of it.</p>
<p>Having been in your situation, I can sympathize. I know that it’s irrational, but it still bugs me. What others are saying is right, though: it doesn’t really matter in the long run. If you’ve got a GPA above 3.75 or so, absolutely no one will care or notice. Once you get past a certain threshold, the small differences in GPA make much less of a difference than what classes you took, your recommendations, and your experience.</p>
<p>If you have unwanted thoughts and circular thinking patterns then get to the school counseling center. Do it right away. Just think how miserable you will be if you can’t learn to live life without your head turned backwards looking in the rear view mirror. Grad schools don’t want perfect grades. B+ is close enough. If you don’t think B+ is good enough than you are either misinformed or your perfectionism is getting in the way of your life. (See Counseling center.) </p>
<p>In any case, get better informed about what grad schools want. Here is an interesting story from someone who has sat on the admission committee for CMU and Berkeley. </p>
<p>Ideally you would like to make all your letters of recommendation count. Consider the following two letters:</p>
<p>i. Letter 1: “I highly recommend student X for your graduate program. Student X received an A+ in my undergraduate algorithms class. He was ranked Number 2 out of 100 students. He got the highest score on the final. He worked very hard all semester, never missed a class, and was always able to answer the questions that I asked in class. This conscientious attitude makes him an excellent candidate for any graduate program. ”</p>
<p>ii. Letter 2: “I highly recommend student Y for your graduate program. Student Y received a B in my undergraduate algorithms class. He was ranked Number 29 out of 100 students. Halfway through the semester we started working on network flows. Stu dent Y seemed extremely excited by this topic. He disappeared for 4 weeks and even missed an exam. However when he came back, he showed me some work he had been doing on a new network flow algorithm for high-degree graphs. He had done some simulations and had some proofs. I’ve been working with student Y for the past couple months since then and he is full of ideas for new algorithms. I think student Y’s initiative makes him an excellent candidate for any graduate program."</p>
<p>Which letter do you think is stronger? It turns out that Letter 2 is very strong. Letter 1 actually counts as 0. At CMU we mark all letters like letter 1 with the acronym D.W.I.C… This stands for “Did Well In Class” which counts for 0, since we already know from the student’s transcript that he did well in class. By contrast, student Y’s letter gives us a lot of information. It explains that the reason student Y didn’t do better in class was that he was busy doing research. It also tells us that student Y started doing research on his own initiative, and that he is quite good at doing research. The professor was impressed enough with student Y ’s ideas that he took him on as a student researcher despite student Y not having high grades.</p>