<p>I am a first year graduate student in a PhD program and have received an F in a first year course that is unrelated to my research interests. How big of a deal is this? My professors are insistent that this will not my employability options. However, I do have an acceptance from another school where I can start out as a first year. I have heard that grades don’t matter in graduate school, but an F is making me uneasy. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>what field are you in? in the humanities or social sciences, anything below a B+ can land you in serious trouble. every school’s policy differs, but unless you’re going to a crackerjack school, i have to think that an F is a really big deal. are you on academic probation now?</p>
<p>and even with that acceptance from another school, your current graduate transcript will follow you. every time you apply for fellowships or grants, it’ll be there. when you try to get a job as a professor, it’ll be there. if you’ve got As otherwise, it probably (?) won’t be a big deal to have one F, provided your school doesn’t throw you out.</p>
<p>how are the rest of your grades?</p>
<p>The rest of my grades are all As and one B+. I am not on academic probation. I was thinking of starting as a first year at the new school and just having this be a lost year. Would the transcript follow me in that case?</p>
<p>I think you should have been more careful when you picked your elective course. Transcript will follow you no matter where you transfer but I believe most grad school will just give you credit for courses you pass and you will be able to start with fresh gpa record. In high ranking grad school, you will not get any credit for your phd work and have to start from beginning of phd program. Decision is up to you whether you transfer or not but my advise to you is don’t transfer to lesser ranking school just because of one grade you got from elective course.</p>
<p>Don’t you have to repeat the course? The better grade goes into your GPA. Take it over again, don’t get less than a B, and get over it.</p>
<p>It’s actually a better school. I spoke to them and they said it was up to me as to whether I want to transfer credits or not and that as far as they are concerned, I can start as a first year with a blank slate.</p>
<p>Nope, they are not letting me repeat the course.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure the school will kick you out if your GPA is under 3.0 for most graduate program. and you can’t have any class with grade lower than a C either.</p>
<p>hmmm what is your field?</p>
<p>Is that different according to each school or the same universally?</p>
<p>Is there some reason why you can’t ask anyone at your school about this? This seems like a school specific issue rather than something that anyone can answer based on no information.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone that’s had their transcript asked for after completing a PhD, so if the school doesn’t care you failed the class then neither should you.</p>
<p>The only time I could see your GPA mattering is if you want to completely leave your research field and go into something on Wall Street where they won’t have a clue about your research and need some other proof you’re smart.</p>
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<p>I know this isn’t true in my program, at least. After my first semester I had something like a 2.9 and didn’t even get a warning. One of my friends got a D- in a class and didn’t have any problems (he even had the professor on his committee). It’s definitely possibly to do rough in some grad classes if you’re involved in your research from the start and have to spend a lot of time on travel in order to do your research (Especially if it’s research when you can’t choose the time to travel. If your grant gets beam time the second week of December, you’re going to be away the second week of December.)</p>
<p>We have two identical OPs but with different responses, so I will be merging the two threads into a single one.</p>
<p>I also don’t understand how you got an F. When I was in graduate school the lowest grade you could get was a C and that was considered failing.</p>
<p>the GPA probably won’t follow you on the job market, but i was under the impression that new PhDs sent copies of their transcripts along with their job apps. after working for a year or two i think that no longer matters. but you definitely DO have to send all transcripts from every school attended (even if you leave) when you apply for grants and fellowships. that will follow you.</p>
<p>Transcripts seem to follow you forever in academia. It is very common to have to submit transcripts when working at colleges and universities in administrative and faculty positions. However, an F in an unrelated field would probably not impact employment prospects.</p>