what's your lowest grade (in college)?

[poopfriends]

and how did you explain it??? Mine is a C- in biochem - blahhahhhhhhhhh!!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[philomycus]

Mine was a C. Did you check your schools to make sure they will accept the C-?? I'm just guessing here, but there may be schools out there that will only take a C, not a C-. Can't hurt to check into it.

 

[JerseyisCutest]

B

but I haven't taken Biochem yet!

 

[polo vet]

one C in intermediate spanish freshman year

 

[ElvisMarie6]

B- in Biochem. I had the oldest and most cranky professor in the department... it was torture.

 

[david594]

I am going to need to live down a D in Models of Computation and Programming Languages....

Being a computer science major wasn't fun.

 

[dyachei]

C - in organic chem 1st semester. It sucked, but I pulled my grade up the second semester. My schools didn't ask me about it, so I didn't explain it. I think it may have helped that the lab portion was separate and I got an A in that.

 

[pressmom]

C+ in genetics....

 

[lailanni]

How are the +/- determined?

I've never been clear on how the numerical GPA (2.5, 2.7, 3.0, etc) compares to a letter grade.

Is there an official system?

 

[dyachei]

How are the +/- determined?

I've never been clear on how the numerical GPA (2.5, 2.7, 3.0, etc) compares to a letter grade.

Is there an official system?

At my school a A was a 4.0, A- was a 3.7, B+ = 3.3, B = 3.0, B - = 2.7, C+ = 2.3, C = 2, C- = 1.7, D+ = 1.3, D = 1, D- = 0.7

Hope that helps

 

[shuvball1]

I'm not sure about "official" but at my school it goes like this:

A = 4.0
A- = 3.67
B+ = 3.33
B = 3.0
B- = 2.67
C+ = 2.33
etc.

It has always bothered me that there is no A+ at my school. I don't think it's fair that somebody with a 93% gets the same gpa as some with a 100%+ (for example in some of my psychology classes where above a 100% is actually feasible). If there is an A-, I think there should be an A+. But that's just my opinion...

 

[ri23]

In my opinion, if someone is getting over a 100% in a college class, something is wrong.

 

[shuvball1]

I wholeheartedly agree, but as I said, in my experience, they've been psych classes (or intro classes) where extra credit is offered on all tests and so forth. The sad part is that I study 1/8th of what I study for my bio/chem classes for my psych classes and people are still failing them (class averages are usually about an 80).

It makes no sense to me, but I'm not complaining, certainly helps my gpa. I think because I'm a bio major, I know how to study well, it seems most psych majors, at my school at least, either don't care or don't know how to study well.

Once again, no offense to any psych majors/minors out there... I'm a psych minor and love my classes! I find them very interesting, especially my abnormal psych class! =)

 

[rexosaurus]

C+ is Physics II; prof knew there was cheating going on and chose to turn a blind eye, so the grades were (35 being the highest on a test): 35,34,35... then the natural break was a 19. but you know there are no excuses, so Physics just isn't my strong point

 

[ShelterGirl]

C- in chemical engineering control systems bleccccch

 

[imagine21]

C+ is Physics II; prof knew there was cheating going on and chose to turn a blind eye, so the grades were (35 being the highest on a test): 35,34,35... then the natural break was a 19. but you know there are no excuses, so Physics just isn't my strong point

I got my C+ in physics I but then I got an A or A-(really don't remember which) in physics II

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

D- in second semester Physical Chemistry. Woo! Honk if you passed P-Chem!

I actually wrote a note to the admission committee about it, I was so worried....I had been working two part time jobs as well as having a full credit load, and was on-and-mostly-off various medications for my ADD due to some physical reactions I was having to them. They understood, thank goodness.

 

[david594]

It has always bothered me that there is no A+ at my school. I don't think it's fair that somebody with a 93% gets the same gpa as some with a 100%+ (for example in some of my psychology classes where above a 100% is actually feasible). If there is an A-, I think there should be an A+. But that's just my opinion...

Ones perspective on this will vary highly on where they went to college but there are 2 big issues with the idea of an A+. First off it will completely break the GPA system that is currently in place. You can see this in high schools where they have >4.0 values for honors courses or A+'s. The other issue is it just fosters more competitiveness and in many places to a unhealthy level. Its very doable for those individuals who strive to be the top of their class to obtain a 93, but to be shooting for a 98 is on a whole other level.

For a lot of freshman getting their first B in college is a devastating thing. A+'s would be nothing more than telling them they didn't work hard enough earning just A's.

 

[shuvball1]

Good point and I do agree with you. I think I'm just bitter about the A-. You got an A, but not good enough for a 4.0

 

[david594]

My undergrad had no grade modifiers. So A=4, B=3, C=2, and D=1. Your A- would be an A but at the same time your B+ would be a B.

 

[fargeese]

One and only C was in Calculus II. I took the class at 8:30am, my very first trimester as a freshman. What a ***** I was.

Ironically, the professor who gave me the C wrote one of my recommendations for vet school. I spent most of the semester in his office crying over functions, so we got to know one another well!

Oh, and I didn't bother explaining it, no one's perfect and I doubt they expect total perfection!

 

[lailanni]

The other issue is it just fosters more competitiveness and in many places to a unhealthy level. Its very doable for those individuals who strive to be the top of their class to obtain a 93, but to be shooting for a 98 is on a whole other level.

IMHO, the competitiveness is already at an unhealthy level. As a student in the largest and most competitive university in my state -- it's a little scary to see how intense people get here.

For example, in my chemistry, biology and biochem classes, people are just plain mean. Ask someone for help, they'll barely answer you, tell you to look it up yourself -- or sometimes they'll tell you the wrong answer on purpose. Not everyone is like that, but I've seen it several times.

Very few people help eachother out, though there are some study groups here and there. But even in study groups, I've heard of people withholding resources from their study buddies.

I find it really depressing - we end up hoping that others do poorly so we can excel - instead of learning together. I know it selects for the academic best of the best, but I have my doubts that it makes for happy, healthy, and well rounded people.

 

[Kara31191]

I'm not sure about "official" but at my school it goes like this:

A = 4.0
A- = 3.67
B+ = 3.33
B = 3.0
B- = 2.67
C+ = 2.33
etc.

It has always bothered me that there is no A+ at my school. I don't think it's fair that somebody with a 93% gets the same gpa as some with a 100%+ (for example in some of my psychology classes where above a 100% is actually feasible). If there is an A-, I think there should be an A+. But that's just my opinion...

At my high school, the teachers don't "give" A+'s because "No one is perfect and no work is ever perfect". Apparently, you could always improve.

Then again... a very HS answer! =P

 

[RockStarKDub]

IMHO, the competitiveness is already at an unhealthy level. As a student in the largest and most competitive university in my state -- it's a little scary to see how intense people get here.

For example, in my chemistry, biology and biochem classes, people are just plain mean. Ask someone for help, they'll barely answer you, tell you to look it up yourself -- or sometimes they'll tell you the wrong answer on purpose. Not everyone is like that, but I've seen it several times.

Very few people help eachother out, though there are some study groups here and there. But even in study groups, I've heard of people withholding resources from their study buddies.

I find it really depressing - we end up hoping that others do poorly so we can excel - instead of learning together. I know it selects for the academic best of the best, but I have my doubts that it makes for happy, healthy, and well rounded people.

That is so unfortunate! Sometimes I hate the fact that I attend a not-terribly-competitive state university (due to commute/finances) but when I see stories like that, I feel much better. I may not go to the best school, but the professors are phenomenal and my fellow classmates and I are like one big happy science family! Everybody knows everybody, and everybody helps everybody.

 

[ShelterGirl]

D- in second semester Physical Chemistry. Woo! Honk if you passed P-Chem!

<honking> Got a C in that one

 

[BobDog]

D in calc I first semester freshman year. Oops! Woke me up quick. Got an A the next semester!

 

[168135]

IMHO, the competitiveness is already at an unhealthy level. As a student in the largest and most competitive university in my state -- it's a little scary to see how intense people get here.

For example, in my chemistry, biology and biochem classes, people are just plain mean. Ask someone for help, they'll barely answer you, tell you to look it up yourself -- or sometimes they'll tell you the wrong answer on purpose. Not everyone is like that, but I've seen it several times.

Very few people help eachother out, though there are some study groups here and there. But even in study groups, I've heard of people withholding resources from their study buddies.

I find it really depressing - we end up hoping that others do poorly so we can excel - instead of learning together. I know it selects for the academic best of the best, but I have my doubts that it makes for happy, healthy, and well rounded people.

I'm currently attending a small university. We have roughly 3000 students. Most of my classes are smaller than my classes in high school, and everbody is friendly and is willing to give everyone a hand. A few times in lab, I'd have someone hand me their assignment and be like "Here are the answers" I'm just like, "Uh, thanks", do my questions and then check to see if we got the same answers. But I love it here!

I knew of two people back in highschool who were pretty intense. They were both IB diploma students and were battling each other for highest average in the school. One girl was a sweetheart... she was always willing to help... her mom put a lot of pressure on her to get good marks. The other girl... well, she went online and posted a blog that said that me and four other people deserve to be kicked out of IB and that we were all going to fail at life. And guess who was valdictorian I don't have to put up with crap like that here. It is amazing.

 

[Kylana]

My school marks a bit weird and grants A+ to any grade over 90%. Pretty awesome deal. Oh, and I'm in Canada if that makes any difference.

My lowest grade is an A- in first year English, but maybe our A- is lower than everyone else since we have A+'s...I'm not sure, I always get confused over grading. And I also haven't taken biochem either (2nd year student)

 

[freyamaxine]

Wow American uni's sound so competitive.

I go to Melbourne uni which is one of the best universities in the country, but more importantly people are very concerned with marks here to be able to transfer to various degrees (most other uni's most people get in straight out of high school).

I have only ever come across helpful people here. Some people might be mean (just because some people are!) but I have never heard of people lying to each other.

The marking scheme is also very different here. We don't have GPA's and just go off percentages. Also it is extremely good to get over 80% here, so that is sort of like our A. We have H1 = 80-100%, H2A = 75-79%, H2B = 70-74%, H3 = 65-69% , P = 50-64%

I think most people average around 70%

 

[thereservoirdog]

WU (withdrawal unauthorized) in Differential Equations, which is an F. That class, along with electric circuit analysis and computer programming, made me realize I don't want to be an engineer so I just stopped going and the next semester I switched to biology. Since then my lowest grade has been a B+ in gen chem II.

 

[rosemma]

B- for Gen Chem lab. My professor told us not to worry that everyone would get an A so of course I didn't put much work into it. I figured even if I did poorly I would at least get a B+. At least it was only worth 1 credit!

I like this thread - it gives everyone hope that you can do poorly and still get in. Or the very least, you don't have to have a 4.0 or close to it to get into vet school.

 

[DrKsomeday]

On a different note I have 7 W's on one of my transcripts. When I attended a service academy I changed my major after freshman year and took a semester off returning home and going to the local state school that semester. I almost didn't go back to the academy. This “time off” is actually more common than I realized at the time. The academy can be very competitive and high pressure situation and just plan mean. I had never been in a situation where my gender was such a big deal. I attended during some major changes in the military and at the school. Things are better now but the women in my class had their work cut out for them.

Anyway, at the academy they select your classes. Well, some how me taking leave of absence never caught up with the registers office so I was enrolled in a full load of courses. When the error was caught (by me 1100 miles away) they were switched to W's instead of just removed b/c it "wasn't their fault." I tried to fight it and to this day it still ticks me off to see them on my transcript. To take a leave of absence you have to get cleared through the Dean and the Commandant of the School. Everything is documented but still the registrar didn't care and claims the W’s don’t look bad (?!?). Guess I should be glad they didn't just give me grades for all those classes.

 

[cyrille104]

D- in second semester Physical Chemistry. Woo! Honk if you passed P-Chem!.

<honking> Got a C in that one

/honk

I also got a C in my second trimester of p.chem. They really didn't care...no one in vet school ever needs to know quantum.

 

[Emio]

i got a C in freshman english.

as long as clients don't ask for a 5-7 page paper on my findings and diagnoses i should be ok

 

[cyrille104]

i got a C in freshman english.

as long as clients don't ask for a 5-7 page paper on my findings and diagnoses i should be ok

I think someone needs to write a 5-7 page paper on the intimate serosal tissue of the ruminant cecum. So that it exists.

 

[thesonofdarwin]

I thought my B- in BioChem would be my lowest until the C+ in Organometallic Chemistry... I didn't even need the damn class, I just needed A 400+ Chem class and that's the only one that fit into my schedule. I am still angry that I didn't think ahead regarding scheduling one in a semester or two earlier.

 

[banditalfi]

I thought my B- in BioChem would be my lowest until the C+ in Organometallic Chemistry... I didn't even need the damn class, I just needed A 400+ Chem class and that's the only one that fit into my schedule. I am still angry that I didn't think ahead regarding scheduling one in a semester or two earlier.

I would just like to respond by saying... whhhyyy? The advanced chem electives at my school are "synthetic organic chemistry" or "spectroscopy" or "proteins in 3d", all of which I would happily take before organometallic chemistry!

 

[thesonofdarwin]

I would just like to respond by saying... whhhyyy? The advanced chem electives at my school are "synthetic organic chemistry" or "spectroscopy" or "proteins in 3d", all of which I would happily take before organometallic chemistry!

I have a knack for punishing myself with difficult courses, I was just overwhelmed my last semester with other time intensive courses to keep my grade up. Our school rotates the upper level courses in an A,B,C,D sort of fashion.

Year 1: Semester 1 (A), Semester 2 (B)
Year 2: Semester 1 (C), Semester 2 (D)
-repeat- for Years 3 and 4

We had more courses than just 4, of course, but my required classes took up all the time slots that were available for every other upper level Chem except Organometallic. I absolutely LOVED lab, but it was O.Chem on crack^2 when it came to memorizing reactions. I should mention that I did fine on the two (2) exams we had as well as lab, but the final just obliterated my A- because of how heavily it was weighted.

 

[Nexx]

I was kicked from the Univ of FL early on in my academic career with a cum GPA of 0.87. Without getting into the nitty gritty of it, financial issues played a large role in those grades.

Anyhow I explained it by taking off school for a year and then returning part-time while working full-time. Then I went to school full-time and work full-time (with two semesters of full-time school at a community college and a university as well as working full-time) and pulling my GPA up to a 3.55.

Also wrote what I considered to be one hell of a letter of intent for my app which discussed in part my academic 'history'

 

[lailanni]

hah, now that this quarter is over I can say for sure : )

B- in genetics and biochem.

Which is why you should never, ever take biochem, genetics, o-chem, and wildlife bio at the same time. Ever.

 

[RazorDoc2010]

C- in chemical engineering control systems bleccccch

is that like process control??? if so, I loved that class (but we had an awesome teacher for that one). and I found it pretty useful in physiology!

ok back to OP, my lowest grade was a C in Organic Chemistry I. I followed that with an A in Organic Chemistry II though and it was never brought up.

 

[ShelterGirl]

is that like process control??? if so, I loved that class (but we had an awesome teacher for that one). and I found it pretty useful in physiology!

ok back to OP, my lowest grade was a C in Organic Chemistry I. I followed that with an A in Organic Chemistry II though and it was never brought up.

Yup, process control - really bad teacher for that one. I aced the lab, but not the lecture.

 

[VetMed555]

D- in Introduction to Bible at a Christian College. It took me YEARS to pull up my overall GPA to 3.6 after that freshman year. My science GPA is 3.9 though. I just made it a point to write a statement about all the hard work that went into dealing with consequences of that one bad year at a Christian College. When I saw admissions at VA-MD they told me not to worry about it and even write something about my academic achievements, so don't lose hope.

 

[HopefulAg]

B.

Ya'll that have the + and - system are lucky. My college does A, B, C, D, F. (4.0 - 0.0 respectively). So an 89.4 is the same thing as an 80.

I got an 89.3 in Microbiology, which translates into a B. Soooo close to making an A, and it was a five hour class.

Got a 3.2 for the semester where as I would've had a 3.53 for the semester had I just gotten that extra .2

So be glad that it's not 4.0 or nothing.

 

[david594]

B.

Ya'll that have the + and - system are lucky. My college does A, B, C, D, F. (4.0 - 0.0 respectively). So an 89.4 is the same thing as an 80.

I got an 89.3 in Microbiology, which translates into a B. Soooo close to making an A, and it was a five hour class.

And every class where you got an 89.5 and they rounded up became and A instead of an A- and the same with your 79.5's being B's instead of B-'s....


Yup, and both the classes I got C's in were 79.4999's that the professors just didn't round up because they were evil evil men. Or maybe they were 69.5's that got rounded up. A lack of grade modifiers can both help or hurt but at the end of the day it pretty much averages it out.

Think of it this way, if you got a 91 in all your classes you would have straight A's and a 4.0 GPA. If you had grade modifiers then you would have straight A-'s and a 3.7 GPA.

 

[Tsuky2008]

My lowest grade is the B I got in ecology. The ecology class at my school is infamous for being ridiculous because we have a 72 year old crotchety professor and he's the only prof. that teaches it and he just loves giving B's and C's to pre-professional students. Blech!!

I'm excited to say this actually because our grades for fall semester were just posted and I made an A in biochem (wOOt!) so I don't have to add that to the B list with ecology hahaha.

Anywho, I'm new here! I'm applying this coming application cycle, c/o 2013 hopefully!

 

[PAThbrd]

I'm applying this coming application cycle, c/o 2013 hopefully!

That makes me feel old!

We didn't have +/- modifiers at my undergrad either, and we don't have them now at Penn. It worked really well for me in undergrad, I was the one with the 89.5s and the 90s with the 4.0 gpa. It has not been the case for me now though, with a couple 89.4s. Including a 10 credit biochem course 1st year in which I had an 89.49 and only needed a quarter of a point on the final... grr.

 

[Tsuky2008]

That makes me feel old!

Haha me too when I think about how old I'll be when I finally graduate with my DVM!!! I was supposed to graduate this may and be able to enter vet school as c/o 2012 but I took forever in figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, so I didn't end up declaring a major until I was a junior...but in the meantime I took some awesome classes that I'll never use hahaha.

 

[pupsforseeing]

And every class where you got an 89.5 and they rounded up became and A instead of an A- and the same with your 79.5's being B's instead of B-'s....


Yup, and both the classes I got C's in were 79.4999's that the professors just didn't round up because they were evil evil men. Or maybe they were 69.5's that got rounded up. A lack of grade modifiers can both help or hurt but at the end of the day it pretty much averages it out.

Think of it this way, if you got a 91 in all your classes you would have straight A's and a 4.0 GPA. If you had grade modifiers then you would have straight A-'s and a 3.7 GPA.

We have grade modifiers at my school. So, I'm one of those that the -'s always hurt me, but so far the +'s have never helped me..I've gotten more -'s than I can count, but not a single +. Go figure.

 

[Emio]

We have grade modifiers at my school and I am one of those people that it has hurt. I have gotten one B (a flat B, not a B+), no B+'s but a ton of A-'s. All that to say that if we didn't have modifiers, my GPA would be about a 3.95 instead of a 3.8.

i'm so sorry.