So up until recently I’ve been doing fairly well trying to maintain a 3.7+ GPA for transfer at my community college. I’ve just finished my first year here and I’m currently taking summer courses in Economics and Calculus and I plan to apply to my schools(Cal, UCSD, UCSB, UCI) this fall, however I became caught up in a funk in my Calculus class and will most likely end up with a C in the course which would drop my GPA to a 3.5 instead of raising it to a 3.81 had I gotten an A and not been so foolish in becoming comfortable in the class. I’m now faced with the decision whether to apply with this possible 3.5 or to re-take Calculus again for a better grade, but delaying me from transferring possibly 1-2 years. I can still TAG to UCI which after getting some advice from some close friends seems like the best option at the moment I honestly have no idea what to do. Perfect opportunity that I blew up and now its dragging me down, if anyone could give me their honest opinion/suggestion on what they think would be best for me please let me know at this moment I need all the advice I can get. Also my major is Computer Science and I am well aware it is very impacted within the schools I’m trying to apply to which is why I’m so hesitant on just taking the C in Calculus. Thank you honestly to anyone who reply’s to this message.
Can you drop the class with a W on your transcript? That might be the best option. They consider your GPA as it stands at the end of the Fall semester, so you’ll definitely have the chance to raise it.
Unfortunately it’s already passed the withdrawal deadline in my case and I had no idea that they consider my GPA as it stands at the end of the Fall semester as I’m planning to take 19 units this upcoming Fall semester so in that case I do in fact have a chance at raising it. Thank you so much for that input as I previously had no idea that they take into consideration your GPA at the end of the Fall, are you completely certain of this? Thank you again and what do you think is the best viable option?
I still say keep the C so you won’t fall behind in the math series.
Absolutely certain. You send them an update when you get your Fall grades, I believe. Try not to overload on units, if possible. Know that Cal is a reach, even if you had a 3.81. Definitely TAG to the school you want to go to the most out of which ones are available to you, and shoot for UCSD/Cal.
Try your ABSOLUTE hardest to get better than a C in Calc.
Yeah I will certainly try as hard as I can. Half of me is thinking that I’m blessed to even have these options for transferring as many others don’t, but the other half is thinking that what school I go to will be a part of me till I’m gone so I should apply as strongly as possible to really see which school is considering, however delaying transferring for a long period just for that reason might come out to be a huge gamble on my part. I really appreciate the feedback from both of you, its helped me think a lot especially with my Calc class ending in less than a week. I’ll decide tomorrow after speaking to a counselor and just hope for the best from that point on.
If you get a C and then retake the class, they’ll still factor the C into your GPA. They only drop D/F grades when courses are repeated.
Make sure that your school let’s you retake classes you get a C in. At my school they won’t let you re-take a class unless you get a D, F, or WI and I didn’t realize it and it kind of screwed me up.
University of California site also says: “For transfer applicants, a course may be repeated if the student received a grade of D or F. UC does not limit the number of times a transfer student may repeat a course in which they earned a D or F.”
I did in fact check my school’s policy on re-taking courses and it said that I could not have anything “C” or higher. Thank you for the suggestion though, I will try and speak to a counselor also and get their opinion/suggestion on the matter.