Expert: Todd Johnson - 6/1/2008

Question
QUESTION: Dear Mr. Johnson,

Hi.  I have asked this question once before, but did not receive a satisfactory reply.  I hope you may provide the answers I seek.

I attend community college here in Texas.  I'm graduating after the summer semester, once I complete one last course.

I've just received my final grades for spring.  They look like this: A, A, A, A, B!!!!

Yes, a B--the first I've ever received from any teacher EVER, from kindergarten until now.  Anthropology really screwed me up, and now my GPA is a pitiful 3.91 instead of that shining, glowing 4.0.

For undergrad, I'd like to apply to Penn, Stanford, Duke, Brown, Cornell, U of Illinois, and Berkeley.  Apart from charity work with Mensa, publishing items in various things (school anthology, literary quarterlies, etc), and four excellent professor recommendations, my GPA was all I had to go on.  

Now it's a miserable 3.91.  Doesn't it look awful compared to 4.0?  Stupid anthropology!!  Is this going to damage my credibility when I apply?  As an English major, I've killed my lit/english/writing classes--it's very fair to say my English and Lit professors love me.  Will the admissions folks "mind" all that much if I scored one insignificant B among all those As?  After all, I'm not going into science or anthropology--my strengths in english should be glaringly apparent to these colleges, no?  Won't my professors' letters and my grades reflect my strengths, and overshadow that little B?

Basically, I'm hoping the doors to these great schools are not now closed to me.  Please give me some hope by telling me that I still have just as much of a chance as always  :)

Thanks,

Josh



ANSWER: Josh,

Congratulations on getting great grades in the courses you have taken. One B in the course of 2 years of college will not make any difference in your admissions chances.

That being said, even with the great grades you have you are looking at some  of the most difficult schools in the country to gain admissions to. You probably have a good chance at Illinois but the rest of the schools will be difficult. That is not to say that you might not gain admissions but transfers to most of these schools are very limited and generally are coming from other well known schools. I would strongly urge you to expand the colleges you are looking to transfer to to include some that have better odds of admissions.

Good luck and don't worry about that one B. It makes no difference.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Mr. Johnson,

Thanks for the prompt reply.  I think Illinois and U of Oregon will receive my application.  I've heard U of Oregon at Eugene has the "best" Creative Writing grad program in the United States.  Very selective, and very prestigious.

Just a quick question: do you know anything about Duke?  Maybe I can discount the Ivy League schools, but what about Duke or Berkeley?


Thanks again,

Josh  

Answer
Josh,

Duke, like the Ivy League schools, is very difficult to gain admission to and frankly I think somewhat overrated for most students. I like Berkeley and they accept many transfer students but the problem with Berkeley is that it is very California oriented when it comes to undergraduate admissions. California has probably the best developed community college system in the country with the understanding that it is a feeder system into the four year colleges. As a result, the vast majority of transfers that a school like Berkeley takes are going to be from a California 2 year school.

I think it is fine to have reach schools but you want to make sure you have something besides reach schools. U of Oregon would probably be a reasonable choice with your grades.

I hope that helps.