One bad grade?

Applying to College
1

I’m applying to some fairly competitive schools (UChicago, WashU, Tufts) and my transcript contains almost all A’s and a few B/+s. However, I have this one big nasty C in Honors Chemistry that sticks out like a sore thumb. I did poorly in this class because the teacher was horrible. It was his retirement year and he would come 10, 20 minutes late to class every time and then assign 4 hours worth of homework 2 minutes before the bell. A terrible teacher, a terrible guy. Almost all his tests had like 20 point curves on them. Do you think its a bad idea to include a little note with my app explaining this lousy grade? Or will it make me look bad?

Thanks.

2

<p>i don't think they'll care about ONE bad grade. they look at the overall GPA. i am in the same boat. i got a D in math in 10th grade cuz i hade a bad teacher and other than that i had all A's and B's and an occasional C.</p>

<p>if there is a place on the application to explain "other factors affecting your academic performance," then, by all means, include it in your app. otherwise, it may look like more of an excuse if you included it as somehting extra.</p>

<p>good luck!</p>