General College Question.. in Off Topic

ID:277484
 
May 6 2007, 8:05 pm
How negatively do you think a F looks to a college? Up until now, I have made everything other than D's and F's, gotten advanced on tests, and etc. I know I take some honor and AP classes but from my perception, any kind of F is frowned upon. All of these years, and I just now make a F in the 11th grade, during the 5th six weks in Pre-Calculus and maybe a week after being inducted into the National Beta Club for maintaining a 3.0 or above unweighted GPA..x.x I'm pretty much shocked(still) but I'm wondering if any of you Byonders have maybe some college experience, letting me know if this grade is as horrible as I think it is..
#1 May 6 2007, 10:03 pm
They mostly look at your ending grade average, one F shouldn't hurt that too much if you can pull off B's and A's from now on. Just as long as you can keep the average looking decent you should be fine.
#2 May 7 2007, 4:54 am
In response to Nadrew (#1)
Here, your score is calculated and turned into an "Enter" score. The higher the score, the greater your chances of entering university. Years prep - eleven don't matter. They're just preparation for you to do well in year twelve.
#3 May 7 2007, 9:51 am
I suck at school..Im on Advanced Diploma (in 9th grade) and I'm failing Algebra 1B. It's not really that I suck at school, I just despise math and I can't seem to excell in something that I despise xD.

I plan on going to college (of course), but, I'm not worried about it right now...Hey Tiberath, does 9th grade matter?
#4 May 7 2007, 10:56 am
Colleges don't just like to see A's and B's. What really impresses colleges, and what they are really looking for, is to see if you failed a subject with an F or whatever, and then got a B or an A in the same course the next few quarters. The reason for this is that the college realizes that you are trying and that you pushed yourself and ended up passing the class after you failed it the last time. They like to see that you are capable of taking care of yourself and that you take care of your responsibilities (for some reason it looks like I spelt that wrong...I might have).

Stop worrying about college so much, it's not hard to get into. As long as the college knows that you are grown up and responsible for taking the fault in whatever you do on their campus, and that if you fail a subject you can sure as hell pass it later on. College is about the experience and about taking care of yourself. It's also about growing up and not having to rely on mommy and daddy to put out your clothes in the morning.

With that said...stop worrying.


*EDIT: Oh yeah, and if you are black, you can probably get into any college you want.
#5 May 7 2007, 11:36 am
In response to Cavern (#4)
You mean any minority, but not all schools cooperate with affirmative action.
#6 May 7 2007, 11:41 am
Mostly colleges look at weighted GPA, SAT/ACT scores, extra curricular activities (some like community server a lot), and things that make you look unique compared to the other possible applicants because they probably want the best of the bunch. For the most part, they don't look at any grades other than the final grade for the year.

Some also like to test your writing skills with an essay, so it's best to do well in English. College is not really that hard to get into. It's the paying for college that's hard.
#7 May 7 2007, 11:58 am
In response to Tiberath (#2)
Tiberath wrote:
Here, your score is calculated and turned into an "Enter" score. The higher the score, the greater your chances of entering university. Years prep - eleven don't matter. They're just preparation for you to do well in year twelve.

Don't you live in the U.K.? In the U.S. all of your years in high school matter. Your cumulative average is one of the things colleges see on your unfinished transcript.I'm not sure if they really look at if you failed a class and then improved. Any failing mark will lower your cumulative average.
#8 May 7 2007, 2:50 pm
F's on progress reports don't go on transcripts. Only the half year and whole year grades do.
#9 May 7 2007, 4:03 pm
In response to Cavern (#4)
Cavern wrote:

*EDIT: Oh yeah, and if you are black, you can probably get into any college you want.

Heh yeah I'm black..XD
#10 May 8 2007, 12:31 pm
In response to Justin Knight (#7)
Try Aussie-land. :D
#11 May 8 2007, 10:21 pm
In response to CaptFalcon33035 (#10)
Part of Australia. It works differently in different states. In my state, all classwork done in years 11 and 12 counts towards university entrance (and there's a test at the end as well so they can scale the class scores from different schools to achieve some measure of uniformity, since the classwork is obviously different from each school).

It's actually kinda dodgy; I'm really not convinced that the scaling works that well. But hey, I'm not complaining... I did pretty well out of it. =P (My whole school got scaled up fairly substantially.)
#12 May 9 2007, 11:27 am
In response to Crispy (#11)
Crispy wrote:
In my state, all classwork done in years 11 and 12 counts towards university entrance

Mine is grades nine through twelve, which is a proble because I did not do good in the ninth grade and only a little better this year.
#13 May 9 2007, 1:55 pm
In response to Tiberath (#2)
In Canadia, grades eleven and twelve go on your semi-permanent transcript. I say "semi"-permanent because you can go through adult courses (for a fee, but free if you're under 19 and/or haven't met grad requirements) to upgrade any grades on your transcript which look bad. I took the liberty of replacing my 56% in Math 12 with a far more inviting 87%.
#14 May 9 2007, 2:01 pm
It depends on where you want to go. If you are going to a local 2-year community college for an assossiate's degree, you have absolutely nothing to worry about at all; get a few more F's if you want, as long as you're doing good with everything else. If you want to go to one of the best schools available on the planet, you should be concerned but don't kill yourself worrying about it since it doesn't mean automatic denyal. If you want something in between, then just don't let it happen again and you should be fine.

Also, as has already been said by someone else, academic standing is not the only thing some of them look for. Some schools will look into your other activities such as sports, community service, club activity, and so on. To use a few examples from my area - if you want to get into Syracuse University it helps if you are a basketball star, and if you want to go to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute it might help if you are president of your school's science club.
#15 May 9 2007, 7:37 pm
In response to Crispy (#11)
Crispy wrote:
Part of Australia. It works differently in different states. In my state, all classwork done in years 11 and 12 counts towards university entrance (and there's a test at the end as well so they can scale the class scores from different schools to achieve some measure of uniformity, since the classwork is obviously different from each school).

It's actually kinda dodgy; I'm really not convinced that the scaling works that well. But hey, I'm not complaining... I did pretty well out of it. =P (My whole school got scaled up fairly substantially.)

My methods teacher taught us the mathematical formulae they use for that. Only on the smaller term and I have long sense forgotton it.

We also had a test at the end, but it was on the case we missed an exam. They could use that and make an estimate of how we would have done. It was called the GAT.

Yeah, Victoria does it so much better. =P
#16 May 12 2007, 6:33 am
I'm not entirely sure how it is in the US, but good Universities in the UK look for people who are smart, particularly in their subject, which doesn't necessarily mean these people have to be awesome at tests.

For instance, I was made an offer by the University of Southampton of AAB for Software Engineering. I got BBC, had just test results been their concern, being 3 grades (overall) below an offer means I would've been rejected, without second thought.

As it was, I was accepted without second thought, because I'd demonstrated at the interview that I'm not a total dumbass, instead I'm interested in Software Engineering, Computer Science and the Research-led teaching at the University of Southampton. Apparently I sufficiently impressed my interviewer that he picked me to be his Personal Tutee.

The University of Southampton isn't the only UK University to do that, Cambridge sets various tests for entrants, carried out during your final exams at school. They then decide whether to take you to an interview, based mostly on how you failed those tests (Yes, it's pretty much assumed you will fail them). That coupled with the interview, pretty much decides whether you get in or not.

I personally agree with this approach (Not just because it did me well!), why should you be crucified for one slip-up? Any respectable College should be able to appreciate that certain exams aren't that essential to the course you wish to do. I don't see this being a problem, provided you can convey yourself successfully during any interviews you may get.