<p>Hi everyone. I'm a high school senior and I'm really worried about 4 years later. I'll be attending UIUC this fall and I've already taken several community college courses. My problem is: Due to the severe conflict between my high school schedule and the cc schedule in my second semester, I ended up a "C" in Differential Equations and a "B" in General Physics with Calculus (E&M); I missed too many quizzes and labs and instructors don't allow make-ups.</p>
<p>Originally I thought I could choose not to report college courses taken in high school because my counselor told me that; however, UIUC requires me to send them and claims they will be counted in overall GPA. Even I repeat them in the same community college, and the previous grade will be excluded from community college GPA (they'll still appear on transcript), UIUC will still calculate the excluded grades into overall GPA.</p>
<p>This shocked me so much because I lost my overall 4.0 before even starting my freshman year :(</p>
<p>Would these two careless community college courses taken in high school severely damage my chance of getting into top graduate schools even if I'm able to retain a 4.0 for 4 years in UIUC, to get a good ranking in Putnam Mathematics Competition, and to do a lot of great researches and internships?</p>
<p>I hope to go to MIT, Stanford, Caltech, or UCB in graduate school... (no chance because of these two?)</p>
<p>THANKS FOR ALL REPLIES.</p>
<p>No. You are worrying about nothing. You are totally fine. Do well in college, get plenty of research experience, and establish lasting relationships with your professors/advisors.</p>
<p>So what I should do is just to explain these two grades when applying graduate schools (if I do good in UIUC)? By the way, I am going to be an Electrical Engineering and Physics double major… and these two are corresponding subjects :(</p>
<p>as jayeyesee said, don’t worry about it. You have 4 years to build an academic record at UIUC and get the experience that you need to compete for a top graduate program. The GPA is not everything. I do admissions for the graduate program in physics at [Illinois</a> Institute of Technology](<a href=“http://www.iit.edu%5DIllinois”>http://www.iit.edu) and we look for more than just the GPA and GRE scores. The letters of recommendation and research experience of the candidate are very important. having a 4.0 won’t guarantee acceptance, nor will a 3.9 rule you out.</p>
<p>You can keep trying to get it off, but if you don’t succeed, don’t keep worrying about it. It’s already done, and you can’t do anything else about it, so work extra hard in your 4 years. You’d start out “in a hole”, but I don’t think it’s one you can’t get out of. Besides, if you take similar classes at college and do well, that’s going to count a lot more than your past grades (and if you don’t want to go into a similar field then those grade really won’t matter much).</p>
<p>You probably won’t even have to explain those grades considering how early they were in your undergraduate career by the time you apply for graduate school. You’ll have completed at a minimum of 180 credits by the time you are submitting your graduate application at which point those 8 units (4 for each of the classes you took) will be dwarfed. Just look ahead at this point and do well in your classes. Don’t let those two grades drag you down because frankly, they probably won’t matter too much (if at all) when the adcoms look at your transcript. I had my share of disappointing grades during my early years too but it didn’t keep me out of a top PhD program. Was never even asked about it during interviews either. Good luck!</p>
<p>I can’t stress enough about the research experience and building relationships with your professors and mentors. Accomplish that on top of doing well academically and you should be well on your way to applying (and hopefully getting into) a top PhD program. I certainly am not where I am today solely because of my grades.</p>
<p>here is a guide to getting into grad school from my DS"s friend[ who won a Churchill Fellowship [ harder to get then a Rhodes] and will now be getting his PhD at Princeton.
It gives a lot of very useful advise. </p>
<p>Guide to Applying to US Science PhD Programs and Fellowships</p>
<p>[Education[/url</a>]</p>
<p>but read this one first- he wrote this just before graduating from USC</p>
<p><a href=“http://djstrouse.com/college-what-i-did-right-and-where-i-screwed-up/comment-page-1/#comment-662[/url]”>http://djstrouse.com/college-what-i-did-right-and-where-i-screwed-up/comment-page-1/#comment-662](<a href=“http://djstrouse.com/category/education/]Education[/url”>http://djstrouse.com/category/education/)</a></p>