Hi
I have just applied to UC Berkeley and my intended major is CS. During the summer of 2016 I took CS61A. I was only 16 years old and i was a novice in programming. I mean, during 10th grade I made a couple of simple apps in java like a calculator that added and substracted numbers. I have two questions:
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My grade was B and it was extremely difficult for me to earn this grade. Do you think this grade will positively add on my application?
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i had another problem. Because of visa issues to get the student visa I needed 7 credits so I took math 16B. The workload of these courses was a lot for me. I was not familiarized with that amount of work. Unfortunately, i did not pass the course. I explained my situation in the additional information section. Initially i was only going to take cs61a but i had to take a course of 3 units to get 7 units and get my visa. Do you think this will negatively affect my application even though I explained it?
I am applying to UCB, UCLA, Harvard, and Gatech
A B in CS 61A is fine. That’s a tough course. On the other hand failing 16B is an issue. It’s like the second part of AP Calc BC and failing it is akin to failing AP Calc BC. There isn’t enough information to really talk about how you will fair. But on one note it’s not spelled collage but college. Might be smart to get that right.
Sorry!! But if I have explained my situation, which caused the NP grade, do you think they could understand?
Can you afford all of these schools?
The UC campuses do not provide funding for nonresident students.
No matter what your test scores, or anything are, they only fund resident students.
Also, according to recent posts, it appears that you’re making mistakes left and right; do you ever check with anyone before you write or type something? Hi caliber students applying to high caliber schools don’t typically make those kind of mistakes.
Sorry for the mistakes I was writing on my phone and since it is in spanish the phone put words I did not want. Yes I can afford all these schools. No worries. What do you think about my post?
Since you’re not a resident of California, your chances of getting into UC are greatly diminished.
If you have a bunch of classes that you need to explain, that doesn’t bode well for your application.
You need to add some safeties and not just the top schools.
Lots of international students are extremely disappointed when they don’t get into not even one school so add some safeties.
Okay I get it. But do you think that if I explained my situation through the essay in UC, they are going to understand my bad grade in Maths? My transcript, predicted IB score and my math level 2 subject test show that I am pretty good at mathematics.
A failing grade in math is a major issue; diminishing your chances significantly to top schools.
Failing calculus 2 is a major issue. Especially as a high school student.
Okay, I get it. So even though I gave an explanation it considerably hurt me. I guess I will have to wait for my rejection letters. Thanks to all your responses
A failing grade is a failing grade.
The adcoms know what a failing grade is.
No amount of explaining that it was a hard course and that you took it as a HS student for visa purposes, is going to have them say: “well, he had to take the course for his visa, so it’s okay if he fails”.
They have over 100K applicants; a lot of those students don’t fail Calc 2.