One B Senior First Semester, Advice Please!

Applying to College
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Sorry if this comes off as petty or annoying, I would just like to hear the opinions or possible experiences of others who were in a similar situation as me.

I have decent course rigor and only received two B’s in APLAC my junior year (which is unrelated to my major), thus I shotgunned to many T20s in the RD round.

Unfortunately I am ending with a B in honors chemistry my first semester senior year which would be sent on a midyear report to most if not all of my RDs. I am aware that my question may come off as petty so anything that can help reduce my anxiety would be appreciated.

How bad would this affect my overall chances at T20 schools because although many people say it won’t be the reason for rejection, wouldn’t the top schools definitely be able to scrutinize the smaller things much more?

This B doesn’t really affect my GPA much, only turning from 3.94 to 3.93 yet I’m just worried that it’s a B in a relatively “easier” STEM course when compared to an AP STEM class for example.

I was really hoping if anybody has any anecdotes of this not really affecting their acceptance chances as much (everybody online says it doesn’t but I am having a hard time finding hard experiences that back this up)

Thanks!

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You sort of acknowledged it’s petty.

Kids with worse GPAs get into top schools. Kids with higher GPAs get rejected.

When one gets rejected, they have no idea why.

You have an overall record - rigor, ECs, LORs. I have no idea what they are.

In the end, you’ve applied and you’ll know soon enough.

As long as you have one affordable admit that you’d be satisfied attending, you’re in a good spot.

Best of luck.

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yea i really dont know what im asking for, just want to talk to someone about this so i stop fessing over it. You’re definitely right, nothing I can do now and I’ll just try my best to keep my mind off of it. Thank you so much for responding!

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samee situation, I am kinda worried as well

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You all need to relax.

No one has to be perfect in life.

And there’s a gazillion successful people coming from a gazillion schools. Know why ?

It’s the person, not the school, that makes success in life.

And there are tens, maybe hundreds of colleges, that you can like. There’s not just one.

If you built your list properly and have an affordable school that you’d enjoy, you’ll be fine. No college applicant should ever have to worry.

Harvard produces successes and non successes. So does Hofstra and Hawaii.

So relax - you’ll go to college somewhere and have a great experience - assuming you built your list properly.

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thank you!!

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Top schools will expect to see evidence that you will be able to handle rigorous, college-level courses. They will look at your entire academic record as a big-picture assessment and make a decision - it’s beyond getting a couple of B’s. I assume you are also applying to targets and safeties?

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You might get in, chances are you will not. Either way, doubt that the B will have an effect.

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This may or may not be comforting, but . . .

So one of the reasons people rightly say it probably won’t matter is that unless you are hooked, the sorts of colleges you are talking about regularly reject lots of applicants with your previous academic record anyway, indeed lots of applicants with completely perfect grades in their secondary school system. So if they were rejecting you anyway, it won’t make a difference.

OK, that’s the bad part, but then how do people actually get accepted? Well, something stands out to these colleges as part of their holistic review process. Maybe one or more activities. Maybe something they get out of essays, recommendations, or an interview report as relevant. Maybe they just have certain buckets they are trying to fill and you were a good match for one or more buckets. Who knows? If it was predictable you could apply to just one college.

OK, so suppose this was you before you got this grade–you were in the small minority of applicants who stood out to them in some way and they WERE going to admit you, but oh no, they find out you got this B. Now what?

Well, in theory they might change their mind. Can’t rule that out as a possibility.

But how likely is that really? If you stood out to them as someone they really wanted for some reason, is this actually likely to reverse that analysis? They may well still like you anyway.

So if you look at all possible cases–you were getting rejected anyway, OR you stood out and they still like you, OR you stood out but now they change their mind because of this one grade–that is the order of likelihood I would put them in, from most likely to least likely.

Again, I don’t know if that is comforting or not. But I am confident the logic is sound.

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Two things about “top 20” schools. One thing is that admissions is both hard to predict and very difficult in general with very low acceptance rates among very strong applicants. The other thing is that they are looking for students who fit their preferences (whatever that is) and who they see as a good fit for them.

At least in my experience the “good fit” part seems to work out way more often than I might have expected. To me this suggests that at least there is some good sense being applied somewhere in the process. Can you or I predict what they will see as a good fit? I do not think that we can.

One B in honors chemistry is not going to make much difference. However, I think that admissions to top 20 universities is a long shot anyway.

I am generally skeptical about “shotgunning top 20” universities. I think that just as the schools are looking for students who are a good fit, I think that students should be looking for schools that are a good fit.

The best news: There are hundreds of very good colleges and universities in the US. Students can do very well in life with a degree from any one of at least several hundred schools. The very large majority of these schools will not care at all about a small number of B’s. If you do graduate from a top 20 university and then get a job, you will find yourself working alongside people who graduated from a very long list of schools and in most cases no one will care where you got your degree. Similarly, if you look at graduate students at top 20 graduate programs, again you will find students who got their bachelor’s degree from a very long list of colleges and universities.

I hope that you have applied to safeties which you would be happy to attend. I hope that you have paid attention to your budget in deciding where to apply. If both of these are true, then I just would not worry about it.

The examples that come to mind involve admissions to graduate programs. My older daughter and I both had undergraduate grades that were only “okay” for the graduate programs that we were applying to (less than your 3.9x high school GPA), but were applying with very good relevant experience and references. We both had a few less than perfect grades on our transcripts but still got into the program that was the best fit for us, and that was also highly ranked.

Basically it worked out for both of us in spite of our not being perfect. No one is perfect.

As long as you have applied to solid safeties this will work out for you also, one way or another.

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This!

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Not sure if this helps, but…

Many students like to think that more selective schools are more likely to scrutinize over smaller details, but my faith is that admissions officers are always looking for positives, not negatives.

Part of me saying this comes from a sort of hopefulness, but also think about it feasibility wise: if you have a large pool of people and you have to select a few, it’s more feasible to pick someone out rather than to eliminate every single person that you may be less interested in. That’s why I think “fit” is important for some of the most selective schools out there. Not only how you fit into the school vibe, but also how you fit into the current study body pool and their institutional priorities for admissions this year.

With top schools it will always be a gamble, so I always tell students that if there’s a fit for you this year, you’ll get in. If there’s not, sadly you won’t be one of the less than 10% of all students. There’s simply too much out of your control.

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I think that this is a very good point. I will admit that I have not heard this expressed quite this way, but it matches my experience.

Being really excellent at something is definitely not the same as been just good enough to get an A in everything.

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