hi everyone, i’m a prospective transfer student and i have never applied to any college besides my current CC so i am kind of lost in this transfer process.
when AOs look at my college transcripts, do they ONLY see my cumulative GPA? do they put the same weight on it as my individual semester GPAs???
please read:
my cumulative GPA (i’m a physics major) is rather low ~3.2, but my semester GPAs are way higher (3.7 for spring and should be a 3.5+ for this semester). i got ONE C in a 6 week summer calc class when the pandemic was going on as my power was shut off for a period of time which has absolutely tanked my gpa. my individual semester GPAs are very good, but i am SO afraid of the AOs mainly looking at my cumulative GPA and throwing out my application. i have ASD so these online classes have been incredibly hard for me and i am absolutely trying my best to maintain a high GPA
because of this, i am restricting myself in terms of what schools i am applying to: i am very interested in a few top ‘LACs’ (Mac, W&M, Oberlin) but scared myself to not apply to these colleges because of my one C. have i ruined my chances to be a competitive applicant at these schools?
When colleges say that they look at your application holistically, this helps when things are off somewhere. They look at the whole picture, not just one C and throw it in the reject pile. Make sure that your application tells your story. If using the Common App, there is space for you to explain how Covid impacted you. AO’s can see your transcript, but they don’t know who YOU are as a person. What’s interesting about you? That’s what these top LAC’s want to know and how you would fit in on their campus. What do you add to their superb academic and residential living environment? Don’t spend time worrying, spend time crafting the best overall package representative of who you are. You will land where you are supposed to be. I wish you the best!
They will read your whole transcript. They have to in order to understand if you got the GPA taking a bunch of easy classes or if you had some challenging ones in the mix.
thank you for the extremely helpful reply! yes, there is a space on the common app that allows you to explain how COVID impacted you, but i have no idea how to word it without sounding like i am complaining about my situation.
also silly question, when admissions officers see my transcipt they can see ALL of my grades in my classes laid out in front of them; not them just seeing my cumalative GPA?
