<p>Hi there,</p>
<p>I'm a geography major at a California community college. My top choices for transferring are UCLA & UC Berkeley. Right now I'm taking an oceanography class in summer session at UC Berkeley and I'm not really liking it here. Although oceanography is related to geography it's not a prerequisite for the geography major at either UCLA or Berkeley. Right now I am signed up to take this class for a letter grade but I have until July 31 to switch to the Pass/No Pass option. I want to take this class P/NP but fear it will look bad when I apply for admission to UCLA. I now realize that UCLA is the school I want to go to. If I take it as P/NP will it look like I felt I wasn't ready for university-level coursework? What would be the possible consequences?</p>
<p>By the way, so far from community college I have all A's in my major coursework and a 3.9 UC-transferable GPA. </p>
<p>Thank you so much.</p>
<p>“No more than 14 semester (21 quarter) units may be taken Pass/Not Pass.”</p>
<p>I don’t know about specifics though.</p>
<p>Basically, you don’t want to try and you’re wondering if throwing in the towel is going to negatively effect your chances at getting into a great school. Whats a great GPA if you are not going to challenge yourself? Pull on your man pants and give it shot. You’ll probably be better off for it.</p>
<p>I’m not throwing in the towel. It’s not like I’m going to drop the class. I’m just thinking about changing the grading option.</p>
<p>Why would you change the grading option? Unless you thought you would get less than an A, or would have to work very hard for an A. Am I right?</p>
<p>I had 1 class Pass/NP and it was fine.</p>
<p>You seem kind of judgmental :(</p>
<p>Anyhow, I’m having health problems and feel totally out of my element here in Berkeley. I’m from L.A. I know I could get an A but I don’t see the point of unnecessarily stressing myself out if it won’t affect admission.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear that. Good luck to you. I am sure you’ll get into UCLA and do fine.</p>
<p>well this is different then taking a pass/no pass at a community college, this is at a uc. i don’t know how they’ll look at it, but i’m not sure if that’s showing them you can handle uc level work. not saying it as an insult but saying it as how they could possibly look at it.</p>
<p>if you are taking a lot of classes, then it would be understandable</p>
<p>how does c/nc affect your GPA? Does it at all, or do they just count as extra units?</p>
<p>i took a couple classes pass no pass while i was at UCSB and i got into every UC i applied to. As long as you’re under the limit you’re fine.</p>
<p>Some guy on CC gave me good advice when I asked a similar question. I was taking a technical bio class that wasn’t required for my major either. He said: “If you think you can get a B or better, you should take it for a grade.” I ended up getting an A and am glad I took the class for a grade because I learned a lot more too. </p>
<p>For what it is worth, I did call Davis to ask the question and the person on the phone pretty much said that P/NP classes don’t look very good… she said it appears as if you would have gotten a C if you receive a “P” and an F if you receive a “NP.” I don’t think this is really the case, but it is better to not give UCs any reason to question your application imo.</p>