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I am currently an undergraduate student, and looking to apply to grad schools in the future. In response to COVID-19, my school is offering the ability between choosing the letter grade earned to appear on the transcript, or a pass if you earned over a C, for each individual class.

I'm wondering if choosing the pass option for one of my classes would reflect poorly on grad school applications. The class in question is a not a major or graduation requirement, and it is 4 credits, so taking a B or lower would hurt my GPA.

Thank you!

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  • This question has been asked and answered at CSEducators:cseducators.stackexchange.com/q/6271/1293. The answers are probably generally applicable. My own view is that until universities publish policies on how they will interpret such grades the student is making decisions with incomplete information. This makes it risky. I suspect such policies will emerge and will be favorable, but can't guarantee that.
    – Buffy
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 19:36
  • How many credits is typical for a semester/class? Otherwise, we can't understand how big of a deal a 4-credit class is.
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 19:41
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    Unfortunately, it's hard to know at this point. Graduate admissions committees will all know that Spring 2020 grades are a special case, and likely find a different way to consider them - but it's unclear how they will do that. I doubt that they know themselves. But it does mean that an answer based on existing admissions practices is unlikely to be very helpful.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 19:41
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    Is this class important for the phd you want.to do?
    – user111388
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 20:21
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    While I don't understand the US grading system, if the class is not important, surely the people looking at your grade wouldn't care that it was pass/fail, no?
    – user111388
    Commented Apr 1, 2020 at 21:02

2 Answers 2

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The class in question is a not a major or graduation requirement

Assuming you want to go to graduate school in a topic closely related to your major, taking one unrelated course pass/fail will not matter under normal circumstances. It will matter even less because everybody knows students are being encouraged to take classes pass/fail during the pandemic.

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If you're planning to apply to graduate school in the next year or two and already have any ideas of prospective advisors you'd like to work with, I'd recommend reaching out to them by email to introduce yourself, tell them why you'd like to work with them, and ask whether they have any idea yet about how they will weight this when considering applicants. This has a few advantage:

  1. Depending on the field and program you're entering, acceptance into graduate programs can be much more a matter of an individual professor deciding to take you on as their student than any formal institutional views.

  2. As such, you should absolutely be getting in touch with potential advisors before applying anyway--many professors don't even consider students who haven't reached out in advance before submitting an application.

  3. It's never too early to get in touch, and showing that you're considering this well in advance and are eager enough to work with someone that you're reaching out to them now will reflect well and increase the chances that they'll consider your application more favorably (assuming it's solid) once you do apply.

If you don't know who you'd like to work with but have any ideas about schools you're interested in, you can also email their graduate advisor or dean of grad studies or whatever the person in that role is called there (although again, depending on the field and your career goals, you might want to pay more attention to individual advisors than schools).

With all the above as a disclaimer that the impacts of a P/NP grade will be highly variable and depend on individual schools and advisors... I'll also just say that many, MANY schools are now switching to P/NP options, so you will be far from alone in having a P or two on your transcript from this semester. I have a feeling most professors won't have much choice but to allow for this unless they want to discount pretty much all their applicants for the next few years. Also, to be blunt, an advisor/program that penalizes you for struggling or choosing your mental health over your grades this semester is probably an advisor/program to avoid. Especially if you're saying that a B would bring your GPA down, you can do better than that.

Finally, I don't know your school's specific policy, but many are allowing you to switch from letter grades to P/NP right up until the end of the semester. So you might be able to wait and reevaluate your options after seeing how your grade is doing closer to the deadline. Good luck!

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