How many Bs are too many?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| Shooting for a top school (not HYP but still selective) from a solid public. Top rigor, good ECs, essays, recommendations - everything else considered, is one B okay? Two? Would love to hear instances where non-athlete students still received acceptances with a few hard earned B or B+ grades. |
Anonymous
| You're thinking about this backwards. By the time you are compiling a list of schools, the grades are known. Then you identify schools that are appropriate for those grades (and everything else about the student). |
Anonymous
| The A students work for the B students, the C students own the businesses, and the D students dedicate the buildings. |
Anonymous
As a former straight-A student/NMSF, this has been my experience in life. That’s why the overzealous parents on this forum are so entertaining. |
Anonymous
Not really. You shouldn't wait until the end of junior year to compile a list, ideally one starts before that so they can visit schools in the spring. |
Anonymous
Agree..also a former straight-A/NMSFer. I'm raising my sons to be chill and popular. My older got elected to a club leader position and won an unsolicited award for contribution to the school community. People with no name degrees do quite well at my employer - which is one of the highest paying in my metro. My grandpa the physics PhD always said that the small business owners in his school programs were the ones that made the most money/were the richest. |
Anonymous
Because in the end soft skills usually matter more than hard skills. |
Anonymous
That's all great, congrats. Still shooting for a certain type of school here and wondering if a couple Bs are okay. |
Anonymous
AP courses? |
Anonymous
I’ve heard Bs can be okay in foreign language. Also it depends on the school. As a parent from a private school with no grade inflation or deflation, the only kids we’ve seen accepted to top schools without a 4.0 are FGLI or hooked. |
Anonymous
One B might be fine, preferably a B+. Two B’s, not ok. |
Anonymous
That’s fine, but start with visiting likelies, not reaches, and help your kid find likelies they love. Schools that are likelies even with a bunch of Bs! That way your kid sees that there are going to be great options no matter what, and that takes some of the awfulness out of the process. Then the summer before senior year when you know more about GPA and test scores visit reaches and targets. Add a couple of favorites in each of those two categories to the list. |
Anonymous
|
Nothing anyone tells you in this thread will change your DC’s actual chances. The PP who said build your list based on grades has it right. Don’t build a list of schools that generally expect perfect grades and see you can shoehorn into one of them with a few Bs. also start with safeties. Find safeties your kid could absolutely be happy with. Fine to shoot for reaches but they are reached for a reason and some schools are reaches for literally everyone
|
Anonymous
| Perfect grades are the baseline for top schools. Start there and then you need so much more than that. |
Anonymous
|
A student doesn't get an "A" because they are thinking, "or else I can't go to X college."
Totally backwards thinking. |