<p>Our son attends a college that offers a pass/fail option for several courses required for graduation. Assuming that he will eventually be applying to graduate programs, what do y'all think of choosing P/F for a few elective courses? His first semester grades place him in the top quartile of his class so he is doing reasonably well, ie this is where his SAT scores would place him.</p>
<p>Here is the problem. He is a math and science guy and he easily gets A's and B's in these subjects. In his HSS electives he can get B's with some effort but A's will probably be harder to come by. First semester one of his B's was in intro psych and brought his gpa down. So would it hurt him if he opted to take a few HSS courses pass/fail?</p>
<p>First, let me confess I haven't a clue what HSS means.</p>
<p>If your son wants to go to graduate school in his field, having P/F grades in electives outside of his field will NOT hurt him. The ability to focus on the courses that DO matter--those in his field--may well up his gpa in his major and that will help him. Same advice if he is a pre-med. (It will be a problem if he decides to apply to med school and has taken any of the required pre-med courses, which at some med schools at least include an English course, P/F.) </p>
<p>A little tricker for law..but if he only takes a few courses P/F it won't hurt and the increase in gpa will help. </p>
<p>Little known downsides...the way some schools calculate honors or eligibility for Sigma Xi--hope I've got the right name; the science honorary anyway--and Phi Beta Kappa, taking P/F grades can rule you out. The thinking is that if you took one of the courses you took P/F for a grade and got a C, you wouldn't make it, so why should you be able to get in with a P? Obviously, this only matters for kids towards the top of the class, but..I just mention it.</p>
<p>Swarthmore makes all first semester grades pass/fail and allows others as well, and using the option one other time didn't keep DD out of PBK. Not sure about other schools, but it is worth checking, I think. Didn't affect grad school, either, but as I mentioned on the Swat website, folks should save a copy of first semester grades (which daughter failed to know to do) because the registrar at Swarthmore does not do so... they just disappeared.</p>