Retaking classes you got Bs in...

<p>It isn't just one B, I have a few of them. Also, the way my school works, I don't think it says on the transcript what your first grade was... just that you retook the class.</p>

<p>The school(s) I want to go to, while not the hardest to get into, aren't the easiest to get into. I'm nervous about not getting accepted into one of the schools I want to get into, so I want to do the best I can do. I can understand why retaking a class you got a B in seems like overkill (in my opinion it is, but I know some schools will look at a transcript with three or four Bs and lose a bit of interest), but that's the advice a school friend of mine, who got into an Ivy, gave me. I think a lot of people here are giving better advice though... contacting admissions offices and asking them.</p>

<p>There's a point that has been overlooked throughout this entire thread..Life and the "real world" in general do not give second chances. Once you have done something, it's done. Be it in an opperating room, a political setting or what have you. It's not like a doctor can go back after finishing an opperation and say "well, I did a good job, but it would have been better if I would have done such and such, therefore we're cutting you back open next tuesday..." and the president..wellllll, wait I'm not even going to go into that...I honestly don't think that it's worth the effort in gen. I don't see how adcoms will be impressed if you retake every class that you have got a B in. If it's a class that you need for your major, that's one thing, but an elective or something along those lines..um no. </p>

<p>And oh yeah..Happy Easter Everyone.. :) I hope that this finds you and your families safe, happy and healthy!</p>

<p>Well said Nikki,
and Diogenes, if you have B's in the class and they see retake, and the original B isn't on there, they might assume you did worse than a B, which in turn could possibly hurt you.</p>

<p>I don't know that having 3-4 retakes will look any better than 3-4 B's. Also, what if you re-take and don't get an A the second time around either.</p>

<p>
[quote]
When I say most schools are exactly the same, I'm not talking about grading...presumably the grading at a top 20 school would be a more strenuous than the grading at a community college, but the curriculum is roughly the same.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You have been misled.</p>

<p>
[quote]
At Tufts we are reading the same texts in Poly Sci courses that were read at my 3rd Tier state school...

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</p>

<p>You are using one instance and applying it as a general rule; that is a hasty generalization.</p>

<p>
[quote]
but still, if your capable of doing outstanding A work at a CC than there is no forseable reason why the same couldn't be done at a "ranked" school

[/quote]
</p>

<p>[I excised my response to this comment]</p>

<p>Nikki, a lot of what you're saying is correct, but as I said earlier, I don't feel like I even got a first chance, in one of those situations. I'm sure other students suffered too, which is probably why she (my instructor for that class) got fired. But firing someone doesn't solve everything.</p>

<p>And yeah, the example I gave was a class for my major. It just got my blood boiling that a school that I'd love to go to could be ripped away from me like that, if an admissions person thinks that I should've aced all the classes in my major.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Nikki, a lot of what you're saying is correct, but as I said earlier, I don't feel like I even got a first chance, in one of those situations. I'm sure other students suffered too, which is probably why she (my instructor for that class) got fired. But firing someone doesn't solve everything.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You can send an explanation to the college you are applying to; if the professor is known to be difficult or even abusive, you should note it down and append it to your applications.</p>

<p>"You have been misled"</p>

<p>How so?</p>

<p>You don't think Engels, Hobbes, Smith, Kant etc are used as staples in every Political Science department across the country? Don't kid yourself. I've got enough friends at ranked schools/Ivy's so that what I'm saying is not a "generalization" as you put it, but a pattern</p>

<p>English, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, History are going to be generally the same no matter where you are. There might be more intern oppertunities in DC or NY but the curriculum is generally going to be the same...tell me how History is going to be different at any school. It isn't.</p>

<p>nspeds, thanks. I'll consider that. I don't want to overstate it though, because I don't want to come off as someone who can't accept when something doesn't go right, and therefore blames other people. I may take more classes at my school out of personal interest, and that could inadvertantly up my GPA. Though that, of course, doesn't remove the damage done.</p>

<p>As for each school offering the same education... I highly doubt that what's taught at a top private school is the same as what's taught at a common college. Maybe some of the books are the same, but the manner in which the course material is delivered and graded should be different. Though I don't have much experience with top private schools, so maybe I'm wrong.</p>

<p>"I highly doubt that what's taught at a top private school is the same as what's taught at a common college"</p>

<p>"The manner in which it is delivered"</p>

<p>Do you know what your talking about? What do you think all Harvard professors totally devote themselves to the students, giving awinspiring lectures and going out of their way to do anything for them? Whereas state school teachers simply chuck a book at a student and ignore them?....you gotta be kidding me</p>

<p>I got a friend at Columbia, another at BC another at Johns Hopkins...we're all studying Political Sciene, we're all reading the same books, doing virtually identicle assignments as to what I was doing at my state school. I'm telling you man, at top schools you'll have great professors and complete duds, just like everywhere else. Don't believe the hype...go to a school that will offer you something unique, don't just go because you want a degree that says "Harvard"...education is largely up to the student, not the insitution</p>

<p>I just have trouble people are willing to shell out thousands upon thousands of dollars more just for a name. Admittedly you seem to have more experience about this than I do, but I have trouble believing the kind of work I'm doing right now is anywhere as challenging as I'd find at a top tier school. Then again, I don't go to a 4 year school, so that's another story.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You don't think Engels, Hobbes, Smith, Kant etc are used as staples in every Political Science department across the country?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It is not what is used, but how it is used; some professors have an expertise, and thus, can provide a better analysis of Kant; are you telling me any professor can teach Kant just as well as, say, a Kantian scholar? </p>

<p>
[quote]
Don't kid yourself. I've got enough friends at ranked schools/Ivy's so that what I'm saying is not a "generalization" as you put it, but a pattern

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I have sat in classes at both Yale and Harvard, I have syllabi from both schools for nearly all their philosophy classes and I have numerous exam sheets; these programs are entirely distinct from those at other schools. A lot of the same material is taught at other schools, but professors teach it differently. Some take an in-depth approach to Kant, some schools even offer entire seminars on Kant, some other schools even offer entire seminars on The Critique of Pure Reason, and some other schools even offer seminars on the Transcendental Aesthetic. </p>

<p>
[quote]
English, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, History are going to be generally the same no matter where you are.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I have empirical evidence that demonstrates the exact opposite, as shown above.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I'm telling you man, at top schools you'll have great professors and complete duds, just like everywhere else.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So the late John Rawls or late Robert Nozick are idiots?
<a href="http://hcs.harvard.edu/%7Ehrp/issues/2003/Korsgaard.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://hcs.harvard.edu/~hrp/issues/2003/Korsgaard.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I have narratives on the astounding teaching style of the late Robert Nozick, and though I cannot share them, I can assure you that they are wholly distinct from your generalizations</p>

<p><a href="http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/sen/sen.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/sen/sen.html&lt;/a>
Amartya Sen - 1998 Nobel laureate in economics </p>

<p><a href="http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=4%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=4&lt;/a>
Look at the published texts of Dr. Goldfarb.</p>

<p><a href="http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=13%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=13&lt;/a>
Dr. Scanlon needs no introduction.</p>

<p><a href="http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=99%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=99&lt;/a>
Dr. Parfit, visiting from Oxford, is known throughout the philosophy world for his expertise in ethical philosophy.</p>

<p><a href="http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=8%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/facultymember.php?key=8&lt;/a>
Dr. Korsgaard
What? A Kantian Scholar? Did she not write an analysis of one of the Kantian texts? Did Cambridge not publish it? Or was it Oxford? Are those texts not being used for teaching at other institutions? Would you not rather learn from the person who WROTE the book rather than a from a professor who teaches FROM the book, with no authorship.
<a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521626951%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521626951&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Please, it is almost as paltry as a secondary source.</p>

<p>Argue what you wish, illmatic, what I know is that these are individual's who have published numerous reputable texts that are being used as teaching material at other schools. Are you trying to argue that learning "A Theory of Justice" from a random professor is just the same as learning it from John Rawls? Not only is such a suggestion foolhardy, but it is wreckless.</p>

<p>Diogenes..One thing to keep in mind..Chances are pretty great that at some point in your life, you're going to work for someone who you don't agree with, who you think is a lousy manager/boss and who you feel isn't giving you a fair shot. There is no law that says your boss has to like you and be easy on you..You can either deal with it and make the best out of the situation by using it as a learning expereince for later in life, or quit, find a new job/boss and move on.</p>

<p>Nikki, you're right. And when I've had to quit, I've quit. And I've found better jobs.</p>

<p>In my opinion, giving tests you didn't write that don't cover the correct material, deciding to cancel class for no apparent reason on numerous occasions, getting kicked out of the building for trying to bring your dog in and losing another class period for that, ending classes 30-45 minutes early and earlier, insulting your students, and refusing to teach are not proper behaviors for an instructor.</p>

<p>Maybe you should have dropped..</p>

<p>I would have lost my financial aid, because I wouldn't have been a full time student... unless I could have found another class that fit my schedule, which is difficult to say at this point. But hey, that's all done and over with, so I guess there's no point in worrying about it anymore...</p>

<p>I submitted my application to a school a month and a half ago. Decisions are due by April 1st, and I still haven't heard from them. I have the sinking feeling that I'll get a rejection letter, but we'll see what happens.</p>

<p>The latter half of this thread should really be under a different topic, as you have all almost completely diverged from the title of the thread (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it has raised many, although almost too many, good points).</p>

<p>I agree with almost everyone who's posted, at least as far as a few things go, but since a lot of things went through my mind while reading this thread, I'm going to try to address some things I found to be pretty significant. </p>

<p>I definitely agree with Illmatic and you others when it comes to the fallacy of rankings. I myself am trying very hard (nowadays) to transfer into Columbia. However, the name has nothing to do with it. As I've told those who proposed that perhaps all I'm looking for is a name, "If I was looking for a name, I would be going for Harvard, or Yale, or Dartmouth, or Oxford (or MIT, despite my admittedly terrible math skills), who hasn't heard of those schools?). Those schools appeal to me only a small bit more than the college I'm at now does. A lot of people around here don't know when I'm talking about when I say I want to go to Columbia. It seems as if, in fact, the most useful property of US News rankings is material for bickering about on College Confidential. So rankings are extremely insignificant, and should not even really be discussed when it comes to where one wishes to transfer to.</p>

<p>Secondly, if a professor knows how to articulate some other person's famous book with the same effectiveness as the author of the book would, then it's just as well. I wholeheartedly agree with the "at top schools, you'll have good professors and bad ones" thing. I know for sure that ratemyprofessor.com is true in this respect, and most other "professor rating" sites are pretty much the same way, I figure. Out of whimsical boredom I decided to see how the professors rate at Columbia on ratemyprofessor.com, and, actually contrary to what I would have thought at the time, there were plenty of badly-reviewed professors. Sure, there will be differences in the teachers and the academics at a college such as a Columbia compared to the University of Kentucky, but nspeds really argues that point way too far.</p>

<p>As for the main topic at hand, I agree with Diogenes that the grade achieved in a class depends on teacher almost as much as it depends on the student. Teachers teach classes because books don't usually do good enough jobs explaining the material and are probably almost always written expecting to be used in conjunction with the aid of one who is a veritable expert on the material and can convey it well to his or her students. If the teacher acts like a prick and does not teach the material well enough, especially if that teacher also acts as inexperienced and inconveniencing as Diogenes' apparently did, then it's more the teacher's fault that the student did not learn the material well enough to achieve an A in the class. The "Life's tough, get over it" that Nikki seems to believe in does not really fit into this picture, nor the employment picture. If one's superior is truly not giving that person a fair shot at something, then that is a travesty and that superior should be reprimanded fittingly, and the employee should without a doubt get another chance. Of course, that doesn't often happen, but there is no reason why a person should not rally for another chance or some other sort of reparation, if you will. </p>

<p>You get multiple chances everywhere you are, almost all the time. Doctors and presidents are often expected to perform extremely difficult and fatal tasks and therefore don't really fit into the whole prospect of second chances. That's like saying double-agents and pyrotechnicians don't get second chances. If you're writing a novel, for example (a potentially lucrative career which is relatively common in the "real world"), you can easily tear up part of what was supposed to be your final draft, and completely change the ending of your story. Construction workers can rebuild part of a building that they built to be too unstable. If you're working as a chemical engineer and accidentally fuse flouride with selenium when you meant to fuse it with rubidium, as long as nothing explodes or otherwises turns out catastrophically, you can try again, as long as time and money permit. If you work as a vet and you're trying to cure some sort of sickness that this one cute little dog that was brought into your office has, and the first medicine you prescribed didn't do the job well enough, you can very easily alter the dosage or prescribe some different medication, assuming the mediciation is safe for the dog. </p>

<p>I still don't think having one B really matters, if you still show that you're an awesome student and the type of person the school you're applying to would actually want.</p>

<p>So there's my rant.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I definitely agree with Illmatic and you others when it comes to the fallacy of rankings.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>There is no such fallacy.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Out of whimsical boredom I decided to see how the professors rate at Columbia on ratemyprofessor.com, and, actually contrary to what I would have thought at the time, there were plenty of badly-reviewed professors.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Out of "whimsical boredom," I also used "ratemyprofessors.com" for Harvard on Dr. Korsgaard, Dr. Goldfarb, and Dr. Scanlon and they were all positive, for the most part. However, I would hardly use "ratemyprofessors.com" as an indicator of how good a professor is. If you look at the amount of students that evaluated the above professors, you will see no more than four each. Moreover, most of these students who comment on their professors have not attended lower-ranked schools, so they are not informed enough to perform an adequate comparison. And finally, do you actually think that comments like these should have even the slighest credibility?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ratemyprofessor.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=550801%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ratemyprofessor.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=550801&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
forget about trying to follow him. he lectures from his papers and reads very quickly. he makes many brilliant distinctions and is very subtle, but moves way too quickly. my head hurts after his lectures. oh, but he is a SEXY babe. ;-)*

[/quote]
</p>

<p>
[quote]
Sure, there will be differences in the teachers and the academics at a college such as a Columbia compared to the University of Kentucky, but nspeds really argues that point way too far.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>1) I only go so far because illmatic is obdurate, even when the facts are before him.
2) There are some on here, I will not identify them, who would argue that the quality of professors and academics at Columbia are the same as the University of Kentucky.</p>

<p>Hmm..I don't agree that you get multiple chances, almost all the time. But that's my opionin. I work in a hospital, in the ER, so maybe I am bias to the multiple chances thing...A second, third or fourth chance in a trauma situation is virtually non-exsistant. A doctor writing an rx for too much potassium in a TPN, resulting in the death of an 18 month old child, no second chance. (it happens, even at the best hospitals..just as johns hopkins in 12/03). So, I apologize if my theory on second chances is incorrect, I guess I generalized the rest of the world into the medical world that I know.</p>

<p>Nikki, whether I agree with you or not, you seem like an intelligent person and I appreciate your input. Yeah, from that perspective, I see what you're saying. I've met nurses, and I can imagine what it's like. Actually, I knew a kid for years, who just died at 19...</p>

<p>But yeah, to me, this is a different sort of situation.</p>