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Hey ya'll,

Looking for some advice about course selection / planning for faculty recommendations. I'm a second semester Junior at a NESCAC who will be applying to T-14 schools and some regional T-1s next year. Current GPA 3.72, looking to boost to 3.75-3.76 by the end of this semester to have a shot at T-6. I am registered for one extra course this term, which is fine, but means I can drop a course (without penalty) if need be. The course I'm considering dropping is co-taught by two profs, one of which I've taken four previous classes with and will be relying on for my strongest rec letter. This course is heavily reading-focused and class meetings are student run discussions. We read a book a week, starting with Wealth of Nations, moving onto Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, then onto The German Ideology, etc. My desire to drop is twofold. First, the amount of time this course takes to get through all the assignments is by far the most out of all my courses. Second, the profs co-teaching are notoriously tough graders. The TA for the course only received an A- in the class. So based just on that, it seems like it would be wise to drop it and focus on getting As in my other courses, which I'll definitely be able to do. My concern, however, is that the prof will think worse of me for dropping the course without giving him a good reason (other than GPA protection). Perhaps he'd write me a solid rec letter anyway, as it seems like he really likes me / has given me A+ A A- A- in the past courses I've taken with him, which were small seminars and an independent study, but I really don't want to taint his view of me.

It seems that my options are:
1) Stay in the course, work hard, likely accept an A- while not being able to focus as much on other courses, GPA likely remain at 3.72, get stellar rec letter.
2) Stay in the course but take as P/F, not try as hard as a result and skate by with a B (aka: PASS), prof might think I'm lazy.
3) Come up with a legit reason to drop the course (time commitment, extra curricular involvement), hope prof doesn't hold it against me, boost my GPA this semester and spend extra time studying for LSAT.

FWIW, the prof in question asked me to take this course with him, which was really my only motivation for doing so.

Thoughts, TLSers?

jstanhope14 wrote:Hey ya'll,

Looking for some advice about course selection / planning for faculty recommendations. I'm a second semester Junior at a NESCAC who will be applying to T-14 schools and some regional T-1s next year. Current GPA 3.72, looking to boost to 3.75-3.76 by the end of this semester to have a shot at T-6. I am registered for one extra course this term, which is fine, but means I can drop a course (without penalty) if need be. The course I'm considering dropping is co-taught by two profs, one of which I've taken four previous classes with and will be relying on for my strongest rec letter. This course is heavily reading-focused and class meetings are student run discussions. We read a book a week, starting with Wealth of Nations, moving onto Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, then onto The German Ideology, etc. My desire to drop is twofold. First, the amount of time this course takes to get through all the assignments is by far the most out of all my courses. Second, the profs co-teaching are notoriously tough graders. The TA for the course only received an A- in the class. So based just on that, it seems like it would be wise to drop it and focus on getting As in my other courses, which I'll definitely be able to do. My concern, however, is that the prof will think worse of me for dropping the course without giving him a good reason (other than GPA protection). Perhaps he'd write me a solid rec letter anyway, as it seems like he really likes me / has given me A+ A A- A- in the past courses I've taken with him, which were small seminars and an independent study, but I really don't want to taint his view of me.

It seems that my options are:
1) Stay in the course, work hard, likely accept an A- while not being able to focus as much on other courses, GPA likely remain at 3.72, get stellar rec letter.
2) Stay in the course but take as P/F, not try as hard as a result and skate by with a B (aka: PASS), prof might think I'm lazy.
3) Come up with a legit reason to drop the course (time commitment, extra curricular involvement), hope prof doesn't hold it against me, boost my GPA this semester and spend extra time studying for LSAT.

FWIW, the prof in question asked me to take this course with him, which was really my only motivation for doing so.

Thoughts, TLSers?

An A- (heck, even a B+) with your GPA will not knock you out of the T6. But if you're really concerned about your GPA, I'd recommend option 2a: P/F the class, but make enough of an effort for your professor to still give you the equivalent of a good grade.

Yeah, a 0.03 difference in GPA is not going to be the make-or-break point for your application that you seem to think it is. Drop the class or don't, but don't convince yourself that this is important.

cavalier1138 wrote:Yeah, a 0.03 difference in GPA is not going to be the make-or-break point for your application that you seem to think it is. Drop the class or don't, but don't convince yourself that this is important.

Okay, thanks for the reply. I came to this conclusion by plugging numbers into mylsn. There seems to be a substantial difference for T-6 for GPAs between 3.70-3.75 and 3.75-3.80. Example: 3.70-3.75 and 173 LSAT got 5 into Harvard and 4 waitlisted. For 3.75-3.80 and 173 there were 12 accepted and 4 waitlisted.

Might just be the result of a small sample size, but curious about this myself. My GPA is hovering around 3.75 and I'm curious as to how much of a difference it will be to get 3.8 (Just above 25th percentile GPA for HYS) and to get 3.7.