Hey! I’m a rising senior just finishing up my second quarter of high school. This year, I (unfortunately) ended with a 78 in AP Calculus AB and a 78 in AP Environmental Science. I an applying for political science and government at all of my colleges. Will they really care that I had C+'s in really tough math and science classes? Or are those grades really going to hurt me? My intended major has nothing to do with math or science, and the rest of my grades are fine!
Can you clarify your year? “Rising” is typically used over the summer to mean the upcoming class, when your have finished one year but not started the next. Are you currently a Junior or a Senior?
In general, yes, colleges really care about your grades. All of them. Especially in core courses. Now, there are probably 50+ core semester grades over a HS career, so the importance of one is the same as the other 50 (or other 35 core courses).
Yes, a C+ is worse than an A or B and won’t be ignored. It also won’t ruin an entire application and destroy your chance of ever getting into college as some CCers seem to think. It’s a weaker point in an application (assuming it’s an outlier), but an application has many parts and many places to show strengths.
The impact will vary based on where you’re applying. Applying to MIT where pretty much everyone takes “ tough math and science classes” and gets A’s, it’s a fairly significant issue. At a local community college, it won’t matter at all. All others schools are along this spectrum of extremes.
Thanks for your response @RichInPitt ! To clarify, I am a high school senior just starting my second semester of senior year. I accidentally said “rising,” sorry about that! The schools I’m looking at, for example, are the University of Southern California, the University of Vermont, and Fordham University. I’m already kinda expecting rejections from most of my schools, I’ve historically never been that good at math and science, but hopefully it all works out.
Yes, it is possible that a C+ can hurt you in admissions at some schools. But it may not at others depending upon the selectivity of the college, your gpa, the difficulty of your courses, your test scores, the major you have selected, and the applicant pool for that year.
With the three examples you gave, admissions to USC is most likely to be affected. I’ve known many kids who have been accepted over the years with C+ and other dings to the application package at Fordham and University of Vermont. When you are looking at schools with the selectivity rate like USC’s, anything can be a reason to cull the applications. However, it’s not a guarantee.