What Are Considered Challenging Courses?

juillet
Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:56:05 +0000

Graduate schools like to see that you’ve taken rigorous courses in your field that have prepared you for graduate school. I think the expectation is that you take 1000- and 2000-level classes in your freshman and sophomore years, but by junior and senior year most to all of your courses should 3000- and 4000-level, especially within your major. You shouldn’t be still taking any 1000-level classes in your major in your junior and senior years, and probably should be done taking 2000-level classes by senior year too.

This is why taking intro and intermediate classes to pad your GPA doesn’t necessarily have the desired effect, because grad schools look at your transcript holistically. They want well-prepared students, and a student with a 3.6 who’s taken 2 grad classes and a variety of upper-level undergrad classes is probably more attractive than a 4.0 who earned their high grades taking easy classes. The student with the 3.6 still did very well and is better prepared for the rigor of graduate school.

It’s hard to tell how this will impact YOUR admissions, though, because it really depends on where you took the lower level classes. If you took all of the appropriate classes to fulfill your major requirements and you have a fairly high major GPA as well (like 3.5+), and most of your 2000 and lower level classes were non-major classes, then you will likely be fine.