<p>I never really considered taking a class that’s Pass/No Pass but I’m reading through a bunch of threads on this site and on Facebook and it seems that a lot of students are taking at least one class that’s P/NP.</p>
<p>What are the advantages of taking a class that’s P/NP…besides the obvious?</p>
<p>What are the disadvantages?</p>
<p>What classes would you consider registering as P/NP and which classes should you register for an actual grade (A,B,C,etc)?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>First off, I would also pick a class as letter grade first and then if I for whatever reason want P/NP, then I would change it before the deadline. A lot of students use P/NP to take stress off of a class that is not necessary for letter grade (maybe because cannot spend lots of time on it/uninteresting/etc.). Some students use it just in case they feel that they will do poorly in the class. However, poorly is defined by the person. If poorly means not getting an “A”, then they have to consider which they can do best in and so on. However, you don’t want to use too many P/NP because then your GPA will be awkward depending on how often you use it. Also, apparently for some graduate schools, P/NP looks bad upon and that might be a disadvantage to using it as well.</p>
<p>Also, sometimes for whatever reason (schedule conflict, extracurriculars, etc) you can’t seem to find enough units to meet minimum, students will stick a P/NP class in there to meet minimum. DeCals are really, really good and popular for that kind of thing.</p>
<p>Don’t use P/NP for the following things:
i) Major or minor courses
ii) Breadth requirements
iii) Prerequisites (especially those for med school, or ones graduate schools will look at)</p>
<p>You -can- use them for just about anything else. There are a few things to keep in mind, however. </p>
<p>[ul]
[<em>] GPA-based honors given on the semester WILL NOT be awarded to students who have fewer than X number of GRADED units (I forget the number, but it’s not insignificant).
[</em>] You are allowed to take up to 1/3 of your total units P/NP.
[li] If you earn a NP, you will receive no credit (no duh, huh?). If you want to retake the class to earn the credit, you MUST take it P/NP in order for it to overwrite the initial fail. (This rule is important for people to recognize in general: if you are taking a class for a grade, fail it, and want to retake it, you MUST take the class for a letter grade the second time around; an A won’t override an NP and a P won’t override a D or F).[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>P/NP should be used sparingly, but it can help take A LOT of stress off of your coursework. I agree with BIGAUS and recommend waiting until much closer to the P/NP deadline before deciding which grading method to use; the deadline to switch a class from P/NP to Letter Grade is MUCH, much earlier than the deadline to switch from Letter Grade to P/NP.</p>
<p>are seminars (freshman) only offered P/NP?</p>
<p>question for undecided:</p>
<p>I took Math1B P/NP (it WAS for letter grade and then i switched it to P/NP because I did terribly on the exams I was afraid of getting a super crappy grade) in my First Year and got a NP. I immediately retook it in the summer and got a B. However, on my BearFacts transcript, it says that my total number of P/NP ATTMPTED is 7 units and my total number of P/NP units PASSED is 7 units as well (meaning that, according to the university, I’ve passed every single P/NP unit I’ve taken).</p>
<p>Your statement of a letter grade not overriding a NP scares me. I just really, really need to make sure about this. Could you help me find a link or something that states the letter grade override policy? I’ve been searching around for a bit and can’t find it.</p>
<p>Undecided is wrong.</p>
<p>You CAN take a class P/NP if it’s a Breadth Requirement. You CANNOT take an R&C Course P/NP.</p>
<p>Just thought I’d clarify.</p>
<p>I just want to second what Kultur Wolf said. At first I read the statement by undecided and I had a feeling something was wrong about it & now I’m sure. Unless for some reason otherwise, there is nothing stopping you from taking a breadth class P/NP. There may be some restrictions on the use or whatever, but like Kultur Wolf said, you can take a breadth class P/NP and you cannot take an R&C course P/NP.</p>
<p>If you are applying to law school and are getting a C- or D, do not change it P/NP, LSAC counts NP as a F when (re)calculating your GPA.</p>
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<p>How can you know if you are going to get a C- or a D? You only know what you are getting when you switch, not your final grade. And C- is P, as far as I know. Anyway, if you are getting a C- or a D, you should change to P/NP and then work hard to bring it up to a P. The only grades where you strategy makes sense is D+, D, and D- (do they give D-s?). In the vast majority of cases, better to gamble you can pull out a C- and get a P then worry about the case where you get a D-, D, D-.</p>
<p>Game it out if you want.</p>
<p>Let’s say you have 12 credits of B+ and one 4-unit class you aren’t doing well in.</p>
<p>If you take it P/NP, and get C- or better, you have a 3.3 GPA. Law school and UC GPA.</p>
<p>If you take it P/NP, and get a D+ or lower, your law school GPA is 2.475, but your UC GPA stays 3.3.</p>
<p>If you take it for a grade and get a D+, your GPA is 2.74.</p>
<p>Now, if you DON’T go to law school in the end, you are way better with the NP, because you keep you 3.3 UC GPA. No one will really ever know or care about your NP.</p>
<p>So if you are SURE you are going to law school and SURE you are going to get a D+, D, or D-, it might be arguable one should do as you suggest. But I don’t know how anyone could possibly be sure about any of those things. If you’re going to get an F anyway, of course, you’re much better off doing NP.</p>
<p>Moral of the story if you are in over your head is figure that out fast and drop the class. ;-)</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your replies!</p>
<p>Can all classes qualify for P/NP?</p>
<p>I’m thinking of taking Nutritional Sciences 10 as P/NP because I’m planning on registering for a total of 17 units and I’d just like one P/NP class to make it a little easier. But at the same time, I think I could do really well in NS 10 because I’ve taken (non-transferable) community college courses on nutrition and I’m actually really interested in it…so to be honest, I don’t really wanna “throw away” a good chance at an “A.” Although I probably shouldn’t say that. </p>
<p>I’m an incoming freshman by the way.</p>
<p>Given all this new info:</p>
<p>could ANYBODY answer my question? I’m still kinda confused.</p>
<p>To tastyb33f: I unfortunately do not know the answer of your question, but if it appears like that on Bearfacts, then there may be the possibility that a passing grade on a letter grade course cancels out a NP grade on the same course. Then again, don’t take my word for it and you should try to figure it our from someone who knows for sure.</p>
<p>To xpeachpleasurex: If you think you can get an “A” in the course, I would take it for letter grade no matter once. I would only change it if it is getting close to the deadline to change it from letter grade to P/NP and you are not feeling as confident as you were in the beginning to get a grade that you want. According to what I hear, Nutri Sci 10 is a relatively easy class in the first place and lots of students do well in the class, so I believe you’ll stick to keeping it to letter grade when the semester is done. Also since you have experience in a nutrition course, I would imagine that you’ll be able to handle it. While I don’t know the rest of your schedule, I think regardless of whether you do letter grade or P/NP for Nutri Sci 10, you’ll be able to handle the workload and it wouldn’t make things that much easier if you did take it P/NP.</p>
<p>Sorry about the breadth class thing – I get it in my head that requirements = do not take for anything other than a grade; I forget breadth is often the exception to the rules about credit. 
The actual “breadth” requirements that you can’t fulfill with a course taken pass/no pass are R&C, Foreign Language and Quantitative Reasoning. </p>
<p>To elaborate on the deal with deadlines and changing the grading option:
“The Friday of Week 5 is the deadline to change your grading option from Pass/No Pass to a Letter Grade, but the Friday of Week 10 is the deadline to change from Letter Grading to Pass/No Pass.”</p>
<p>tastyb33f: It looks like I was only half right! A letter grade course, repeated, must be taken for a letter grade. A course taken P/NP can be taken either for a letter grade or for credit alone. ([go</a> here, scroll down to ‘Repeating Courses’](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/collegepolicies/grade.html]go”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/collegepolicies/grade.html)) I DON’T know how this works in terms of swapping your NP to credit passed when you retake the course and get the letter grade; I don’t imagine they’d double-count the units, but maybe they just count “P/NP units passed” as “P/NP units not failed,” which means your having successfully retaken the course for a letter grade would override the original NP.</p>
<p>One thing I said is most definitely true:</p>
<p>Do not take major classes P/NP. In a lot of cases, if you do this, you forfeit credit for taking the class for your major, meaning of the (say) 12 courses you need to fulfill your major requirements, all 12 courses must be taken for a letter grade.</p>
<p>so… taking AC requirement course as a P/NP class is ok? (my ac course also satisfies breath requirement)</p>
<p>It is fine to take your ac course P/NP</p>
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<p>The deadline for changing from a letter grade to P/NP is the tenth week, I think or something like that. If you know by then that you’re not doing too well, you could switch over to P/NP to protect your GPA because they don’t affect your UC GPA. However, they affect your LSAC-calculated GPA. I believe anything C- and below is failing because a C- is under 2.0 grade points.</p>
<p>YEs, taking AC &/or breadth P/NP is okay. Another example might be if you are a first year or second year and not sure of your major, you take the initial courses- say Calculus or Chem- and do well, but move on to the higher level and discover you are not the genius you thought you might be, and realise you will not major in math or chem or whatever, after all. You could change that higher level course to P/NP so you don’t have to stress it as that class is likely not required for your major.</p>
<p>So, take a breadth you don’t enjoy and ease up with a PNP, test yourself or explore higher level classes and don’t kill your GPA with a PNP.</p>
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<p>If you switch to P/NP, and get a C-, that is a P. “To receive a grade of P, your level of performance must correspond to a letter grade of C- or higher.” A C- as you say is a 1.7.</p>
<p>So only if you are going to get a D+, D, or D-, and are SURE you are applying to law school, and your UC GPA is not important to you only the law school GPA is important to you, should you go for the grade instead of switching to P/NP. Most people are better off switching to P/NP and then trying their hardest to earn that C- to get a P.</p>
<p>how about decal courses? for a top 10 MBA school, will they look at it like a C?</p>