How bad are C's?
Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 1:04 pm
I know most people on this forum have pretty spectacular grades, and GRE scores, and are aiming to get into the top schools for graduate study. My situation, however, is that I'm aiming at astronomy graduate study at schools around the ranking of my undergraduate institution or maybe a little better (my undergrad physics department is ranked 48th in graduate physics departments by US News and World Report). So most of the schools I'm applying to are ranked between 10th and 50th, though I don't know how much that necessarily reflects *astronomy* graduate study since US News and World Report ranks by physics graduate study.
Anyway, my general GRE scores are decent but not amazing, and my PGRE score I expect to be not so great. I will graduate with honors, I have research experience, and in all my astronomy classes I've gotten either A-, A or A+, with the exception of one B+. However, I have a few C's in some of my physics classes. I notice that most graduate programs require no less than a B in all of the courses you take during the first two years, which got me thinking, if the standards are that high for graduate classes, how detrimental is it for them to see C's on my undergraduate transcripts, even if my overal GPA is decent and my astronomy and math classes are all B+ or above? Anyone have any opinions on how much these C's will hurt my chances of acceptance into the type of programs I'm trying to get into?
Anyway, my general GRE scores are decent but not amazing, and my PGRE score I expect to be not so great. I will graduate with honors, I have research experience, and in all my astronomy classes I've gotten either A-, A or A+, with the exception of one B+. However, I have a few C's in some of my physics classes. I notice that most graduate programs require no less than a B in all of the courses you take during the first two years, which got me thinking, if the standards are that high for graduate classes, how detrimental is it for them to see C's on my undergraduate transcripts, even if my overal GPA is decent and my astronomy and math classes are all B+ or above? Anyone have any opinions on how much these C's will hurt my chances of acceptance into the type of programs I'm trying to get into?