BSW - MSW: Should I retake a course I earned a D+ in?

Graduate School
1

I came into college a different person. I was severely sad and unmotivated, and I didn’t know what to do with my life. I earned a D+ my first semester, in my history course.

I am now going into my second semester of junior year. I am much happier and motivated. I switched my major to social work over the summer, and since then I am making mostly A’s in my courses. A history course is required for my degree, and my D+ counts toward this. Since it’s not a social work course, I can keep the credit without taking it again.

I could re-take it to raise my GPA. After acing my classes over the summer, my GPA went from a 2.3 to a 2.6, and I suspect it’ll be raised up to the area of a 3.0 after this semester ends as I have excellent grades. I’ll also be re-taking a course I failed the semester before I changed my major to social work from business - I did not take the prerequisite before enrolling in this class (a fluke on the part of my advisor, I believe), however I have to take statistics for social work, and this course is all about statistical process control, so I think I’ll be just fine.

After getting the F replaced with a better grade, and with my grades being so good lately, is it really necessary for me to re-taken a D+? I want to go to as good a graduate school as possible, though most MSW applications I’ve seen tell me they only calculate a student’s GPA from the last four semesters of undergrad.

Would you retake it? What do you think?

Also - if I don’t retake it, I can fit in one more Spanish class, which will only help me professionally.

2

does your school offer grade replacement? In other words, if you repeat the class, will they actually remove D+ from your transcript? If so, you should do it.

3

It does! Once I re-take the course, the D+ will have parentheses around it (meaning that it is not factored in my GPA), and under credit hours it will have “RP”, meaning “repeated”. In that case, I shall!

4

sorry, I was not clear. Full replacement means complete elimination of the prior grade. The reason that is important is because some grad/professional schools count all grades, even if your college no longer does in its own calculatoin of your GPA.

Regardless you need to get your GPA over 3.00 and making bad grades go away is a good start to get there.