Will 2 B's in my major obliterate any chance for graduate admissions to top schools?

Graduate School
1

<p>I'm a Computer Science/Biology double major, looking to go to graduate school for Genetics/Bioinformatics. </p>

<p>My mind is much more mathematical than it is biological, but I'm still very sharp in biology. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, I've made 2 B's in Biology. Everything else is an A so far. </p>

<p>I've made A's in my CS classes like Artificial Intelligence, Stochastic & Simulations, Theoretical Computer Science, Programming Abstractions, Fuzzy Logic, Data Mining, etc.</p>

<p>I've made A's so far in my Biology Major classes like Genetics, Microbiology, Virology, Organic Chemistry's, Genetic Evolution, etc.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I made a B in Bio II and a B in Molecular Cell Biology.</p>

<p>Both classes were taught by the same instructor, same format of pure rote memorization, and I'm a thinker...I like knowing how things work systematically or deriving solutions or ideas from facts and logic. The professor used their own written manual as a textbook, and it blatantly contradicted legit published textbooks and had the worst grammar, syntax, etc. (Russian lady who spent 4/5 of the class berating us about research in the USSR). Both were close B's (88 and 89, respectively), unfortunately a B is a B. </p>

<p>I was just wondering would this hurt my application? </p>

<p>I don't like the physiology aspect of biology, but I LOVE the genetics part. I've taken 3 graduate Genetics classes (Genomics, Population Genetics, Human Genetics) in the college of life sciences on my campus as undergraduate elective (allowed up to 4 total graduate classes), and I've made A's in all of them. I even made an A in a graduate Databases class offered under the college of engineering (computer science). </p>

<p>My GPA is ~3.9+, and I've done research at the NIH, research in genetics and modeling at my institution, an a summer REU at UCLA. </p>

<p>I'm in my 4th/5th year for my curriculum. I want to apply to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA. I might trim it as my curriculum advances.</p>

<p>Other tier schools I'm considering are UT Austin, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Emory. </p>

<p>I really want to go to somewhere in the first set. Do you think it's still possible with 2 B's?</p>

2

<p>With your overall GPA and research experience, nobody will look twice at two Bs. Perfection is not expected.</p>

3

<p>Why would two Bs (aka good grades) in your major “obliterate” your chances for a graduate degree? Seriously, think critically about this. Do you really think that everyone at the aforementioned schools has a perfect 4.0?</p>