You can’t show a B+ in a non-required course? Wow, a tough Medical School AO you would make. No med school because of ONE B+. 
Medical schools pre-screen applicants by GPA and MCAT score before sending those who pass the thresholds to human application readers. Considering that B+ (3.3) is below the typical range of medical school applicants and matriculants, it should be considered a “bad” grade for pre-meds and a liability when trying to get past the GPA screen at a medical school.
https://www.aamc.org/system/files/2019-10/2019_FACTS_Table_A-16.pdf
My daughter and I just had this same conversation and she did what was best for her GPA which is her case was one B which she took at Pass. The rest were As
Well, obviously they pre-screen by GPA and MCAT score. That’s not new news.
According to that link, the mean overall GPA is 3.73. The mean science GPA is 3.66. Standard deviation is about a 1/4 of a point. If med school applicants cannot get a B+ or for heaven’s sake a B on their transcript, then how do those past applicants submit their apps with a mean GPA of 3.66-3.73 with a std. deviation of about 1/4 point?
Matriculants had 3.66 GPA in science (which medical schools require to be letter graded unless P/NP is required) and 3.81 in non-science (3.73 overall). These are obviously significantly higher than for applicants.
Basically, any grade lower than A- is effectively a demerit to one’s GPA for medical school application purposes. Getting as few grades lower than A- as possible is something that pre-meds aim for. Obviously, many premeds do have some grades lower than A-, but every extra one pulls GPA down below what they need.
And yet, most med school applicants must be submitting their grades that are lower than a A-, since the mean GPA is 3.66 (in science). Those are the facts.
I wouldn’t advise my own kid to “mask” a B+ or two in any courses with a P. It appears most med schools applications are submitted with transcripts with B+'s or worse and they still get acceptances to med schools.
And if I’m an AO and I see 4 A’s and 2 P’s, then that’s an *asterisk to me, Covid or not.
For my son it ended up an easy decision. His GPA would be hurt by taking a P (counts as a 2.0 in the calculations per his advisor - which I find hard to believe). He has all A’s with one borderline between a B and an A. His vet school said that if he took the P/F option in that one class his acceptance to the vet school would be rescinded (due to him being an early admit). We found this a little harsh because this class isn’t needed for vet school or his major and he has a 4.0 science average going into the class so even if he failed it his science GPA would be in the required limit! But he decided to take the grade because of no other choice. We will see how the final goes on Friday.
Most colleges do not normally have after-the-fact choice of letter grade versus P/NP, and pre-meds are supposed to take pre-med courses for letter grades except in P/NP-required situations.
During the review, med school AO’s will obviously see that some applicants have chosen to take a P and some applicants will have chosen ALL grades. I’d personally rather have the transparency and I’d add an *****, where I saw an applicant take the P or P’s, because it probably artificially inflates the GPA, depending on the med school’s calculation of the GPA.
Seems like the med school kids have some idea of what admissions folks look for. Not sure how to approach for those grad school kids in other disciplines…
Our son’s school allowed switching to or from P/F up until the very end. He chose P/F early on for a non-required class, since he has taken on a heavier class load this semester. The professor emailed him and let him know that he would pass without doing the final paper; since he had a lot of work in required classes, he decided to take the P. Any grade below A- would have dropped his GPA, so he probably made the right call.
The business school, nursing school, education program, and health sciences/PA program at my university are all advising students to take the grade if they are heading to grad school or professional certification.
Edited to add: I agree with @sushiritto. Obviously any P is not an A. They’ll understand the GPA is not pure. It doesn’t fool anyone, in the same way that an A in band during high school gets stripped out of the recalculated GPA.
Thousands of colleges adopted different approaches to this, and I really doubt whether anyone is going to care about this semester in future years. Too many variables make the whole semester unreliable as evidence of performance. There should be many other semesters more predictive.
Not to muddy the waters any further but would there be different advice for students who are at school already saying they will do Fall online.? That would be two semesters of P/F grades. I would think that for grad programs that becomes even more of an issue and grades would be necessary. .
At Michigan they gave the kids the choice to mask grades with a p if they wanted to with a note about Covid. They all would find out their grades first then they could mask any grade so their GPA wouldn’t be negatively affected and could only stay the same or go up. In a weird Covid way… I think it made some kids work harder. My son unmasked all his grades including a B +. Thank goodness he is just in engineering and not medicine. Lol…
A lot of this is just shenanigans that colleges have enabled. All schools should have done universal P/F or all grades. Grad schools will see through it as med schools have already indicated. Employers, except the elite ones that care about GPA, probably won’t care. The elite ones will also likely discount P/Cs, as there will be plenty of high GPA students not playing these GPA games. My D read me some social media posts from kids claiming a 4.0 semester GPA with grades like 3 As, 2 Ps. That’s comical and I think most people agree that’s not a real 4.0.
My D’s school did not change grading for this semester. Her GPA took a minor hit, but I would not have advised a P for the A- she earned to avoid the hit, even if P/F was an option.
Would you have advised differently if that A- was a B-?
My D opted for grades as it seemed easier than worrying about how courses taken P/F will be evaluated in the future. She finished the semester with a mix of As and Bs. Her school also suspended Dean’s List for this academic year which, according to an article in the campus newspaper, upset some students.
Coincidentally, D came into the kitchen yesterday afternoon and performed the “unmasking” process with me. Be proud of the B+. Literally, that’s 87.0-89.99%, which is darn awesome at UMich.
I think many of the attitudes to P/F are from pre-pandemic days. Everyone reviewing these transcripts will have gone through this disruption themselves. If you are not going to medical/law school, I would maximize your GPA. One semester of P/F, where there is an easy explanation of “our college changed grading policies due to COVID-19” will be overlooked.