How bad is a "B" on math/science courses?

mathboy98
Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:09:32 +0000

I would hope that admissions could see that this most probably means that your school is “harder” and doesn’t give free A’s to everybody.



From Quantum’s previous posts, I believe he had some unfortunate personal situations that led to these, and doesn’t believe his high school’s difficulty is likely to blame.

Otherwise, sure, that would be the logical assessment.



but the things that make people stand out from the crowd are their passions, ECs and essays.



The question is how far they’re willing to risk it though. I’d be willing to place my confidence in Quantum that these school blemishes don’t reflect any inability to handle Caltech level work, but the question is what he provided on the application that would convince them. My impression is Caltech is not the sort of school where one can do almost anything (rather, it is targeted for a special audience), and the admissions policies are a little more rigid correspondingly. I’m sure if QA has other convincing evidence that Caltech shouldn’t be worried, he’ll be duly considered.