Spring Semester 2020 - Should I Pass/Fail?

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NomadStudent

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I am very nervous about my GPA this semester. Overall, I do have a Cumulative GPA of 3.33 (I know its really bad), as of Fall 2019. However with the spring semester, my grades are less than ideal. With the courses I have taken in Spring of 2020. It will drop my GPA to a 3.28. I will be taking courses in the summer 2020, fall 2020, and spring of 2021. I will be taking mostly upper division classes during those semesters. I plan on graduating on spring 2021. There is probably little hope for me to raise up my grades. However, I will be determined to correct any mistakes I have made. I need to know if I should just leave my grades as is and learn from my mistakes. Or if I should Pass/Fail any of the courses below in hopes of my GPA not being effected. I realized that I made a huge mistake, and plan to work even 2x as hard! I am also considering taking a Post-Bacc after I graduate.


Grades of Spring 2020:
Course​
Grade​
NutritionA
College Physics II & LabB-
Evolutionary BiologyA-
General Chem IIB
General Chem II LabB
Research in BiologyA



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I am very nervous about my GPA this semester. Overall, I do have a Cumulative GPA of 3.33 (I know its really bad), as of Fall 2019. However with the spring semester, my grades are less than ideal. With the courses I have taken in Spring of 2020. It will drop my GPA to a 3.28. I will be taking courses in the summer 2020, fall 2020, and spring of 2021. I will be taking mostly upper division classes during those semesters. I plan on graduating on spring 2021. There is probably little hope for me to raise up my grades. However, I will be determined to correct any mistakes I have made. I need to know if I should just leave my grades as is and learn from my mistakes. Or if I should Pass/Fail any of the courses below in hopes of my GPA not being effected. I realized that I made a huge mistake, and plan to work even 2x as hard! I am also considering taking a Post-Bacc after I graduate.


Grades of Spring 2020:
Course​
Grade​
NutritionA
College Physics II & LabB-
Evolutionary BiologyA-
General Chem IIB
General Chem II LabB
Research in BiologyA



I hope everyone is staying safe during this pandemic!

Thank you for taking the time to read this!
The answer for you is the same as for everyone else. If P/F is not mandatory at your school, med schools will assume Ps are masking Cs, since most people don't consider As and Bs bad. In your case, the situation is even more pronounced because your Spring 2020 grades are right in line with your entire 2.5 year record, with no Cs.

You will only be needlessly casting doubt on your perfomance this past semester, which was very much consistent with all your other semesters. Taking Ps will only make make people think you did worse than you actually did! Yeah, you'll probably need a post-bacc to bring up your GPA, but you don't have a story that the situation caused a decrease in your performance, because it didn't. The optics of 0.05 on your GPA is meaningless. All you'll be accomplishing is turning As and Bs into Cs in the eyes of the reader. In fact, a quick calculation shows that you have a 3.4 this semester. How the hell does a 3.41 over 17 credits combined with a 3.33 over 2.5 years produce a 3.28 (assuming 3 credits for all the courses with one credit for the labs (i.e., your 3.33 should have gone UP, not down, after a 3.41 semester!)?
 
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