I am a sophomore in a public university and unfortunately I had gotten an F in one of my core classes. Although the class was not worth many credits (2 specfically),
I am worried about it affecting my chances in transferring out of the public university and my chances in applying to graduate schools, although I have a moderately high GPA (3.68).
I was wondering - what should I do now? And how badly is this F going to affect my transfer applications to other universities (I am applying to a few Ivys, UC schools, and other privates)
The Ivys will be tough for you now. If you are applying to another higher ranked public university, I don’t think that will shut you out. In your application, you can explain where the mistake was and what you learned from it. Just don’t make excuses. You should learn from your mistake, repeat that course and get an A.
Also keep in mind that when applying to transfer, schools tend to factor in all attempts at a course into the GPA used to evaluate your application. Therefore, if you repeated that course, they don’t just count your best or most recent attempt. If you did repeat that course, the GPA your current school calculated for you could be higher than that to be used by admissions offices.
umcoe16 : so let’s say I get an A in the course again, would they simply just count the first grade (the F) or would they kinda average the retake with the first grade? Or is it really just dependent on the school?
Tom SrOfBoston and menioparkmom : So the Ivys are out? This is actually my first F in my entire academic career and overall my grades have been A’s in my core classes with the occasional B+'s.
ikim16 : it was a computer science class, the grade was divided into a midterm 50% and a final 50%. That was the only thing the teacher really told us regarding the class, he didn’t hand out as syllabus nor tell us how our exams would be graded…
I guess you could say i struggled??
My midterm grade wasn’t good, but was actually in the 90th percentile of the entire class. As for my final, I have no idea what I got - the general idea of what I wrote down for the final (for most questions) would’ve worked however I maybe missed like one part of the answer.
Another question, I definitely want to retake the class however it interferes in my new schedule with another important core class. Should I drop the class and focus on retaking the course, or wait and retake the course ASAP?
Getting an F in a course will tell top schools that you are not a serious student, regardless of how you explain it or try and spin it. The point is you let yourself fail.
@aqazi000 when I say that they factor in all attempts into your GPA, then basically they count the average of all attempts. An F is a 0.0 and an A is a 4.0. If those were your two attempts for that course, then the average is 2.0, which means they will treat it as if you took the course once and received a C.
TomSrOfBoston : Fair enough, I can accept that. However what should I do now so I can at least try and remedy this as much as possible?
Also, I want to try and get into grad school perhaps in the Ivys or in some other school in about 2 years from now, is this F going to make this impossible or at the very least unlikely?
Depends on the college whether they replace the grade or not, and whether they expunge the old grade. Where I work, the old grade stays on your transcript but does not count in a student’s GPA.
Retaking a course and getting an A in it after an F should be fine for grad school. Having an F, or even a C, on your transcript trying to transfer to an Ivy, and not from an Ivy, would be close to a no go barring special circumstances.
@rhandco it will actually depend more on the institution being applied to rather than the currently enrolled institution. For example, when applying to medical school, AMCAS requires all attempts for a course to be listed and they will calculate a GPA where all attempts are factored in. This is regardless of the policy of the currently enrolled institution. They do this in order to level out the playing field, otherwise those who attend an institution where there is grade replacement get an unfair advantage.
I’m pretty sure how undergrad admissions offices and grad schools have the freedom to decide for themselves how they wish to calculate an applicant’s GPA. But they will and should apply a uniform method for recalculating all applicants’ GPAs in order to be able to make fair comparisons between applicants. Point is, the GPA which admissions committees use will not necessarily be the same as the one calculated by an applicant’s currently enrolled institution.