Bad transcript from a transfer school

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poig
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 03, 2010 7:48 pm

Bad transcript from a transfer school

Post by poig » Thu Jun 03, 2010 8:01 pm

When I was in high school, I did this program where they let you out early and allowed you to take one or two classes at the local community college instead of taking AP courses. Now, I was a bit immature in high school, and the first semester I did this I basically didn't go to my class at all. I ended up failing it of course, and now there's a big fat "FX" on my transcript from the CC, which means 'failure due to ceasing to attend class'.

I still got into a good university, and since then I have shaped up immensely. I'm getting ready to apply to graduate schools now, and my application is going to look excellent, aside from that one blunder at the CC. I regret this so much. I noticed that most graduate schools require you to submit a transcript from all institutions where you've taken more than a certain amount of credits (usually like 9). My question is, should I forgo submitting the transcript from the CC I attended in high school and hope they don't notice/care? About 15 credits transferred to the university, but none of them were related to physics at all. I really don't want to submit the CC transcript as I plan to apply to some 'top' schools and it's going to blemish an otherwise great application.

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HappyQuark
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:08 am

Re: Bad transcript from a transfer school

Post by HappyQuark » Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:38 pm

poig wrote:When I was in high school, I did this program where they let you out early and allowed you to take one or two classes at the local community college instead of taking AP courses. Now, I was a bit immature in high school, and the first semester I did this I basically didn't go to my class at all. I ended up failing it of course, and now there's a big fat "FX" on my transcript from the CC, which means 'failure due to ceasing to attend class'.

I still got into a good university, and since then I have shaped up immensely. I'm getting ready to apply to graduate schools now, and my application is going to look excellent, aside from that one blunder at the CC. I regret this so much. I noticed that most graduate schools require you to submit a transcript from all institutions where you've taken more than a certain amount of credits (usually like 9). My question is, should I forgo submitting the transcript from the CC I attended in high school and hope they don't notice/care? About 15 credits transferred to the university, but none of them were related to physics at all. I really don't want to submit the CC transcript as I plan to apply to some 'top' schools and it's going to blemish an otherwise great application.
Don't worry about it.

I wish I had more to say than that but this isn't the type of thing that will keep you out of any school no matter how prestigious. Graduate schools care about a very limited scope of things and classes unrelated to physics that you took in your first year of college or, in your case classes taken in high school, is not one of them. MIT, Harvard, CalTech, Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, etc want to see a high score on the PGRE, good grades in physics classes, glowing letters of recommendation, and research experience (preferably authored or co-authored a publication). If you'd like, you could always address this one minor blemish on your transcript when writing your statement of purpose, but honestly it might do you more harm than good to spend time explaining to some prestigious theory group why they should overlook a CC in Economics/Poli Sci/English Lit 101 (i.e. they probably won't be even remotely concerned but seeing how concerned you are about it may make them think there is more to it).



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