<p>I know a lot of colleges will almost immediately toss your application aside if you have more than one or two non As, so I'm wondering... is it to one's advantage or disadvantage to retake classes that didn't result in As, even if the final grades were Bs?</p>
<p>Someone I knew, who's going to attend Cornell, kept trying to convince me to retake those classes. He told me that colleges view that as 'determination'... in other words, in a positive light. <em>shrugs</em></p>
<p>Other background info: I currently attend a community college, and am finishing up my second year there. Not sure if this info is relevant, but just in case, there it is!</p>
<p>if you can fit it into your schedule, retaking a B class is probably a positive. however, i would think that if you retook 2 or 3 B classes the school might be a little put off, either thinking youre too much of a perfectionist or you think you can just get a second chance all the time.</p>
<p>I think retaking a B class is a bad idea. Retaking classes doesn't show that your determined; it shows that your obsessed. If you were really determined, you'd have made an A the first time round.</p>
<p>Ha, yeah, that sounds right in theory (getting an A if you were so determined the first time), but I ended up getting a B in a class where the teacher apparently didn't write her own tests, frequently ended class 30-45 minutes early (and we're talking about a class that's barely over an hour to begin with), etc. It just felt like a slap in the face, because I did all the work, but the assignments often didn't cover what we actually studied. She never taught anything, really. She'd open the book, then five minutes letter, say something like "I don't like to teach", close the book... and that was class. This was supposed to be a psychology class, and the entire time, she just talked about how much she loved Dr. Kevorkian, and steered off topic.</p>
<p>That teacher ended up getting fired later on, but, of course, I still have that grade. I don't mean to sound pretentious, but I guess I wasn't very happy about it...</p>
<p>I don't think it would be a good idea to retake a class you got a B in if the grading policy in the class is such that A's are hardly ever given out. I'm sure that doesn't only happen at UK . . . You do want to show the adcoms that you're great material for their college, but I don't think getting one B will essentially automatically disqualify you. By the way, does anyone know if adcoms actually review the numbers of the grade you recieved, instead of just the letter? I actually had 2 B's last semester, both 89's. (both fractions of a point away from A's)</p>
<p>And it's pretty obvious that if all you did in college was have a 4.0 you still won't have a good chance of getting in. I have to admit I'm a little biased since my first semester was pretty rough in terms of grades, but I'm sure it's the truth.</p>
<p>At my school, our final grades are all letter grades (and not even +s or -s... just A, B, C, D, etc.). There's no way that four year schools could figure out our actual number grades, so when it comes to evaluating that, they're left in the dark.</p>
<p>I wonder if it would be beneficial to, in my spare time, earn a 2nd associate's degree. I don't know if that would make any difference to admissions staffs, but it could keep me occupied anyway!</p>
<p>Second associates degree? What do you mean? 60 hr more?</p>
<p>Yeah my college doesn't doesn't have + or -. It's either an A or a B, a C or a D. In fact, a lot of my A's were low A's, so this kind of helps me.</p>
<p>Diogenes, just call adcoms and ask. Some of the opinions I'm reading in this thread aren't based on what some adcoms have generally said but on "if i were an adcom i would.."-type-of-an-answer.</p>
<p>I don't know...I got 4 B's, 2 B+'s, 1 B and 1 B-</p>
<p>But I got into Tufts and WUSTL...great schools. Maybe no Harvard or Yale, but nonetheless, schools that anyone should be proud to attend.</p>
<p>I don't see what retaking a class over, just for a grade, is going to do for you. Its expensive and meaningless as far as I'm concerned, especially when you confront the reality that the same texts, lessons and even the same tests are used over and over again.</p>
<p>Yeah.. I think getting an A in a new course might be more impressive than getting an A in a course in a second attempt. I mean if you fail the course, yeah, retake it. But a B?</p>
<p>Diogenese... what CC do you go to? just wondering because most CCs I know don't know even allow their students to retake classes that we passed with a C or above (only for substandard grades - D, F, or NC). :O</p>
<p>A place in south jersey... haha, I guess I could be more specific, but a community college is a community college is a community college, probably.</p>
<p>To me, and at my CC, a B is a B. Whether it's a B+ or a B-, it still shows up as a 3. So, it really doesn't matter. Profs don't really even look at percentages, they just look at points at my CC...if there's a max of 600 pts for the semester, you need something like 560 (I'm just pulling random numbers) to get an A. If you have 559, you get a B. No questions asked.</p>
<p>ok i just did the math..lol..you'd need 540 points to get an A. So, if you get 539, yeup, that's a B even though it's an 89.8. I think I had 537 or something...It's allll a blur.</p>
<p>I saw a video clip on the internet one time from a UC Berkeley General Chemistry class. Their grading scale went something like this (this is no joke):</p>