How bad does a fail look on your transcript?

[CossieG]

I'm considering letting myself fail one of my subjects.

My thinking is that I'll have more time to focus on my other 3 subjects and hopefully pull higher marks from them, and then I'll retake the subject I failed next year and hopefully get higher marks for (only taking 3 subjects next year).

How bad would this look on my academic transcript?

[Belgarion]

I think it would look terribly bad on your transcript. Plus it will still affect you GPA even if you do retake the subject so you will be pulling down your marks overall anyway.

[Russ]

It depends on what you plan to do with your transcript for your BSc. A single fail for a first year subject will almost never make or break your future. If the rest of your marks are H1s then nobody will care. If the rest of your marks are 50s, then that's why you didn't get the job/position/scholarship etc. that you applied for.

I would generally advise against deliberately failing a subject unless you think it's likely you'll fail multiple subjects otherwise. It will drop your WAM/GPA and if you can avoid that, then you might as well do so.

[CossieG]

Thanks for the replies.

Basically my dilemma is this:

What looks worse: 4 average grades or 3 pretty good grades and a fail?

[mahler004]

Thanks for the replies.

Basically my dilemma is this:

What looks worse: 4 average grades or 3 pretty good grades and a fail?

Almost always the latter would look worse. Your first year grades don't matter that much, but you don't want to be failing subjects. What subject is it anyway?

Plus, you have to pay for the subject twice. Nobody wants to pay for something twice.

edit: It's worth pointing out that failing a single subject can disqualify or hinder your access to a lot of things - for example, I think exchange is a H3 average and no fails (although you'll probably be able to talk your way in with a H1 average and a single fail.) Fifty years from now, nobodies going to care, but in the present a single fail doesn't look good.

Most first year subjects you should be able to at least pass as long as you put in a decent effort in swotvac.

[CossieG]

What subject is it anyway?

Calculus 2.

[basicm8]

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but
If we fail are we required to do it next semester?
Or can we just choose another one?

[CossieG]

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but
If we fail are we required to do it next semester?
Or can we just choose another one?

If it's a prerequisite for another subject you need then you are required to take it again. Otherwise you can choose another subject.

[LeviLamp]

Calculus 2.

Don't make yourself repeat it, "ordinary" marks in that subject are really common anyway. And it's not too late to boost your scores significantly; you'd be surprised how much you can do over SWOTVAC

[ChickenCh0wM1en]

Calculus 2.

Like Levilamp, we know how hard Calc 2 can be. Just try to scrape a pass for the subject- imo an "average" grade looks better than a pass and repeat even if it is >70.  Have you gone to all the tutes? Usually they bump people up to 50 if they look like they made an effort to attend all tutes. If not, then just get rough review of the subject content and just get stuck into the practice exams - get a mate to check/do them with you and go over where you went wrong and how you could change your reasoning behind each question.

Good luck

[JinXi]

How bad would this look on my academic transcript?

Failing a unit would probably get mentioned during an interview. However, you can easily convert it to an opportunity as you should be able to prepare a pretty epic reason to your fail.

That said, try to maintain an average of 70+ if not at least 65+ as anything below closes off alot of doors especially to grad positions. However, marks aren't the end of the world heard of people getting grad jobs with high 50's average with out of the world extra curricular activities.

Anyway, the worst thing of failing is that you'll be paying the money sucking uni's another sem's worth of that unit's costs.

[Fyrefly]

Basically my dilemma is this:

What looks worse: 4 average grades or 3 pretty good grades and a fail?

The fail looks worse.