I’m a junior, and this semester I had A’s in four AP classes and in Spanish, but a B+ in an elective. Will a MIT or a Stanford care at all, and would an A in that elective have made a difference? A broader question would be how much elective grades affect the admission process compared to core academic classes.
Well from my experience, if the elective is what you are applying to major in- your better get an A (Shows you have a strong potential). You should be fine, if they recalculate your GPA w/ core classes only.
Depends on what the elective is and what your planned major is. Looking at your other thread (Chances of MIT and Stanford) and seeing that it was a web design course and you’re into math/science and engineering, it might be a little concerning. But then again, it’s just an elective.
Each college’s adcom office is different.
Seriously, all grades matter. Does one B+ kill it, not really, but you are looking at elite schools where the grades are just the way to get them to look at your application, and not all of what is important. Plenty of valedictorians did not get admitted, so grades are not the only criteria.
Go to the Common Data Set, Section C for each of these schools. Note that not every single person admitted was a 4.0. That means lots of people got an occasional B and even (gasp) a C at some point. The fact that they turn away lots of 4.0s just proves that that isn’t the key criterion.