I am currently studying at Wellesley College, and realized this week that the transcript which was sent as part of my transfer application only shows “pass” as my grades (Wellesley has mandatory Pass / Fail grading for fall freshman courses) The letter which is sent with our transcript includes an explanation of why all of our first semester classes are P/F, but I am incredibly worried that when choosing between hundreds of qualified applicants this will put me at a disadvantage.
I know that my recommendation letters stated that I was a great student, but I am unsure if sending my transcript would help or hurt my application. Middlebury is my top choice transfer school, but they don’t even have a supplement essay for transfer students and hardly admit ANYONE so I’m super nervous.
Stats:
SEEN: Highschool: IB diploma 37/45, SATS 1990, extracurriculars up the wazoo
P/F: Last semester: A, A (intermediate courses) C+ (introductory language class) P (mandatory P/F first year class)
SEEN: This semester “mid term grades” = A, A, B+, B (taking two intermediate courses, one advanced, one introductory - all difficult)
I'm wondering if anyone here has thoughts on this matter or can give me advice, as I need to act quickly if I want my real grades to be considered as part of my application! Thanks,
I’m assuming that you are only applying to schools on par with Middlebury, and in that case I think you should be worried about that C+… Probably you should have explained that in additional information. Also having B+ and B followed by a C+ in first semester don’t look good for selective schools, considering that schools like Middlebury are even more selective in transfer admission than freshman one.
But after all, Wellesley is a great school and I don’t see why you need to be so desperate to transfer out.
Hey! B+ is the mandatory median grade for a class (because Wellesley has super strict grade deflation policies) so its actually a good grade in a class, where as A- / A put you in the top one or two students in the class, but thank you for the feedback!
Then you should definitely include this information in your additional information section. Also I think B+ is the median grade in many schools, though you may argue in your additional information that students in Wellesley are generally brighter than students at a random community college and thus A is harder.
Hello, thank you again for taking the time to reply and help me in this process.
I just wanted to make another clarification, for anyone who may read this in the future, to clarify more clearly my situation. What I meant by “grade deflation” is that Wellesley has a strict curve that the mean grade for a class must be a B (http://www.wellesley.edu/registrar/grading/grading_policy). An explanation of this grading policy is included whenever Wellesley sends their transcripts.
My question was not about weather my grades were good or not, but specifically about whether only seeing “pass fail” on my transcript would hurt my chances. I am uncomfortable writing schools to ask this, and my college dean at Wellesley said that because this is the first year of P/F transcripts she doesn’t know. I am still very stuck and would appreciate peoples prospectives.
“my college dean at Wellesley said that because this is the first year of P/F transcripts she doesn’t know”
Well then you have your answer. No one knows yet how this will affect anyone’s transfer application. You will just have to wait and see whether/where you get in.