Medical Should I drop my chem class?

[GoSpursGo]

Hello, I hope you are all doing amazing. I had a question that is more personal that I couldn't find an answer for. Because of covid, my college is allowing us to drop classes without having a W on record. I am a freshman in my second semester and I'm on track to get B in gen chem 2 with A's in the rest of my classes. I know if I retook the class over the summer I could get at least an A- if not an A. I have 3 options

1: Take the B and not retake the class
2: Take the B and retake the class over the summer for grade replacement
3: Drop the class and take the class over the summer

What are your thoughts? I am not sure how doing option 3 would look as it would make me have 11 credit hours on my transcript instead of 15. It would also show that instead of doing gen chem 2 in spring I skipped it to take it in summer. Thank you for all the good work you guys do!

Odds are you're not going to wind up getting a 4.0 as your final GPA. Those are simply rare. So, whether it is truly worth your time and money to re-take a course is up to you. If I were you, with just a couple of weeks left, I would just take the B and move on with your life.

To answer the rest of your question, if you did decide to drop the course, absolutely nobody is going to look at your transcript in granular enough detail to notice you took 11 credits one semester or that you "delayed" chem 2. But one minor point--just make sure that 11 credits counts as a "full courseload" at your college and that withdrawing wouldn't affect your financial aid.

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[MusicDOc124]

No one is going to care if you had a single semester of 11 credits. One B isn't going to hurt. Is is worth keeping and retaking? Meh. Is it worth dropping and retaking? Totally up to you. If it were me, and time was already put in - I'd work a little harder at the end and try to get a B- or A-. Personally, having already put in work just to drop and retake for a grade that is marginally higher isn't worth my time. If it were anything lower, sure. But a B is fine IMO, esp if there is time to get a B- or A-.

^ That said, if you can't scrape enough together to get a B- at least with the remainder of the semester, then what makes you so sure you'd get an A or A- on retake?

 

[GoSpursGo]

Thank you for responding! My goal isn't necessarily a 4.0, I am just trying to pick the best possible decision and protect my GPA. The only reason I hesitated to redo the course was because how my schedule would look on my application.

Your schedule would not be noticed on your app.

Just, keep in mind that your time is valuable. The time spent re-taking the class is time that could have been spent racking up ECs, or doing research, or what have you. At least on the surface, I have to assume that you could allocate your time better. But it's up to you.

 

[MusicDOc124]

Lets put it this way. If you consistently Get A's, A-'s, and B+'s, a B isn't going to matter. If you consistently get B's, +/-, then one more isn't going to change anything either.

Get ECs. Volunteer. Do research. Take a different class. Work.

 

[GoSpursGo]

I see what you're saying. I am not sure how much each one is weighted, so what do you think would be the smarter decision, more extracurricular hours or having the better grade?

Grades matter most, but the amount of time and energy that would be necessary to retake the B and make it an A is not worth it.

I will put it plainly: I think retaking a B is more or less always a mistake

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I prefer choice 1 or 3 depending on your circumstances. I would never recommend retaking a class with a B grade since AMCAS or AACOMAS GPA will count all class attempts so an A with a B will not help you in your application (simply, there's NO grade replacement in your app GPA calculation).

I would worry about whether you really learned the material to prepare for your MCAT.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Oh wow, I didn't know that they didn't take grade replacement. I would probably spend 200 hours on retaking the class plus lab over the summer. What do you think is a better use of those 200 hours, raising my chem grade from a B to an A, or 200 volunteer/clinical/EC hours?

This is a non question. 200 hours doing anything else.

again, it’s not that you would raise a B to an A since you don’t get grade replacement—you would simply wind up with a B and an A on your transcript.

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

Finish out your course and take the likely B and move on. Do better moving forward. Wouldn't waste the time or energy retaking a B. If you have a solid application overall, no one is going to even bat an eye at this.