Pass/No Pass Question.

[debacle20]

This is going to be my 2nd year at UCSB and I decided to change my major over summer and perhaps think about going to law school. My First year was good overall, ended with a 3.57 GPA and it will likely increase as my first year i was doing pre-med. The concern I have is Winter quarter of my first year i took a extremely large workload (21 units) including classes like Chemistry, Physics and Calculus.
Because of this I decided to P/NP a history class of mine and received a grade of NP in it, not sure how law schools will view it but I recently changed my major to history and I will retake that class later this year for a letter grade. I think this time around i'll be able to get an A, do you guys think that NP will really hurt my chances for a top 20 law school if I retake it and get a B or an A?

[FalconJimmy]

If memory serves, LSAC will keep track of both grades.  Whether they will consider the NP to be equivalent to an F, I'm not sure, but they may.

If your GPA is high enough, though, I don't think one class is going to make or break you.

[SaraJean]

Yep, the NP is going to be calculated as an "F."  I had that happen. 

[justanothersucker]

NP dang. Wouldn't even the equivelent of a D- be a P? Never did that myself, seems like a cop out and looks like one to anyone reading the transcripts too. (employers, schools,your mom)

[SaraJean]

The thing with P/NP is that it can only hurt you.  "P" grades aren't included when UGPA is calculated.

[justanothersucker]

Yeah, so why do it at all then? Why would someone volunteer to do it, if the school didn't require you to do it?

Only reason I can see is someone wanting to slack off, do D- work and not have it hurt their GPA in a required course that they feel might not be their best area in an attempt to try to artifically inflate their GPA.

The thing with P/NP is that it can only hurt you.  "P" grades aren't included when UGPA is calculated.

[FalconJimmy]

I never took a p/np class, but I wish I had. 

It's a game.  I knew quite a few folks who graduated with honors who were much better at playing the game than I was.  They took as many p/np classes as the school would allow.

[justanothersucker]

what type of classes did they let that fly with? Was it just electives? If it was core stuff like english math or science, then that just shows the whole degree is a joke and worthless.

[FalconJimmy]

what type of classes did they let that fly with? Was it just electives? If it was core stuff like english math or science, then that just shows the whole degree is a joke and worthless.

Usually, it was when they were taking an elective that was going to be very hard, but that they were interested in.  For instance, when I was a computer science major, we'd see communications majors (with 4.0 averages) who would take our classes as elective credit, but they didn't have to worry about ruining their gpa by taking the class. 

things like that.

as far as a degree being a joke, you can get a joke degree from any school in the country if all you want is a sheepskin.  If you are sure your goal is to go to law school, you'd be a fool to make things worse on yourself.  I'd recommend playing the game as well as possible and getting a degree that nails down the highest possible gpa for you.

It's like trying to bull-over a linebacker at the goal-line when you could just angle for the sideline and dance into the end-zone.  If the result is the same either way, you are foolish to take the harder route.

(And this from the perspective of a guy who usually took the harder route.)

[fortook]

I never had to do a retake, but don't retakes replace the original grade?  Isn't that the whole point?  Even worse case, one "F" on your transcript won't kill you as long as the other 100+ or so credits can handle the bad grade. Worrying about little stuff like this may kill you though.

LSAC does convert NPs to Fs, but with the retake I don't know.  Sounds like a question for the school's registrar.