Taking a bunch of Pass/No Pass classes

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>I'm a rising sophomore at Northwestern U and am currently thinking about classes for my 2nd year. The typical courseload is 3-4 classes, but honestly I do not expect any of my courses to be particularly challenging and hope to add a 5th p/np course each of my next 3 quarters just to accumulate some elective credits, explore fields I normally wouldn't be studying, and make it easier to take less classes later when I'm into more intense courses.</p>

<p>Will these P/NP's harm me in the eyes of law schools, especially considering I plan to have 4-5 by the time I graduate? After 1 year I've got around a 3.8-3.9 (pending my final exams) and should have no trouble keeping above a 3.7 next year regardless of whether or not I add a 5th class.</p>

<p>To be clear, I'm not concerned with simply making it to law school but attending top 5 schools and how these top schools would perceive such grading choices. (Stanford and Harvard, both for their geographic proximity to places where I have family aside from great rankings)</p>

2

<p>They would help you less than a high grade would help you. </p>

<p>You might consider auditing the courses instead of enrolling in them, if you don't want to give them your full attention.</p>

3

<p>They will not hurt you at all. As you may know, Brown U. allows students to take courses S/NC --its version of pass/fail. Most studentst take at least some courses this way and Brown does quite well getting students into top law schools. Caveat: it may hurt in other ways. At some schools, doing this reduces your chances of making honor societies like Phi Beta Kappa or graduating cum laude, etc. So check on those rules too.</p>