Taking a course as P/F

[Maeby Funke]

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Do you think it will look lazy to take a course as pass/fail? I'm taking a pretty heavy load right now, which includes 3 upper division biology courses with labs and then a GE history course. The GE class is pretty easy, but we have a few papers/projects that are a bit time consuming. It's so tempting to just take it as P/F and then put 99% of my focus into my other classes. But at the same time I wonder if I'll be giving up an easy A by doing that. I also have no idea how I'm doing in the GE class at the moment since we don't turn anything in until nearly the end of the quarter.

 

[phnerd1105]

Do you think it will look lazy to take a course as pass/fail? I'm taking a pretty heavy load right now, which includes 3 upper division biology courses with labs and then a GE history course. The GE class is pretty easy, but we have a few papers/projects that are a bit time consuming. It's so tempting to just take it as P/F and then put 99% of my focus into my other classes. But at the same time I wonder if I'll be giving up an easy A by doing that. I also have no idea how I'm doing in the GE class at the moment since we don't turn anything in until nearly the end of the quarter.

Not really. I took three upper level bios last semester and then took a language course P/F. However, make sure you can actually P/F a gen ed. At my school, if you P/F a requirement, it won't count for credit.

I would try to find out how you're doing in the class before you make any decisions

 

[Maeby Funke]

Not really. I took three upper level bios last semester and then took a language course P/F. However, make sure you can actually P/F a gen ed. At my school, if you P/F a requirement, it won't count for credit.

I would try to find out how you're doing in the class before you make any decisions

I wish I could but I won't have anything to be graded for by the grade changing deadline.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

If your GPA is good already I don't see why not. Nobody really cares about P/F courses either way (won't hurt or help you) and its not in a requirement so nobody will really notice. Schools don't really go through your grades class by class, they just look at the AMCAS GPAs (unless something crazy happens like you go from straight As to Cs and Ds).

 

[senorsquishie]

I would be concerned, in the pre-med handbook my school was on the web, P/F classes get caluclated as C's by med schools. Is there any truth to this?

 

[bobow98]

I would be concerned, in the pre-med handbook my school was on the web, P/F classes get caluclated as C's by med schools. Is there any truth to this?

Nope that's BS.
Unless it says so specifically on your transcript, P/F or Credit/D/Fail is not calculated into your GPA at all unless you get the D or F.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

I would be concerned, in the pre-med handbook my school was on the web, P/F classes get caluclated as C's by med schools. Is there any truth to this?

I don't believe this is true. Many schools have required pass/fail courses (for example PE is pass/fail at lots of schools and schools like MIT have the entire first year pass/fail). Med schools don't calculate their own GPAs as far as I know, they use the AMCAS calculated GPA. That's why you have to go through the whole AMCAS GPA thing in the first place.

 

[BrainBuff]

I would be concerned, in the pre-med handbook my school was on the web, P/F classes get caluclated as C's by med schools. Is there any truth to this?

That is BS. I know plenty of students who have taken at least one P/F course per semester and have gotten into multiple top 20 schools. It all depends on your undergrad.

There is also the confirmed report of a Brown student a few years ago who took ALL his courses P/F (including pre reqs), and landed a Harvard acceptance (he had killer ECs and service, and also a killer MCAT).

A couple of P/F courses are not going to hurt you.