Pass/Fail Courses

[pabound2016]

Hi everyone,

I could not find it in the forums, but how do PA schools look at pass/fail courses. There is this one course I would like to take as pass/fail during my last semester of my undergraduate career. I simply want to take it for interest without it affecting my GPA. It's not a requirement for any of the schools I am applying to. Should I avoid taking a class as Pass/Fail? How would this affect my caspa GPA? I noticed in their website that a pass would be considered a 3.0, but I read somewhere else in the caspa website that it does not affect the gpa. I am a little confused which one it is.

Thanks!

[MT2PA]

I can't speak to how it affects your GPA but for schools it could go 2 ways.  First - it could have no effect at all.  If it's not a required course they may not bat an eye.  Second - if it's a science course, they could question WHY you didn't take it for a grade.  The only downside I see here is they may think you wanted to coast through and not put the effort in to get an A (which would probably only help your GPA).  I'm not saying that's how it would go for sure, just pointing out one way they could look at it.  They could also see it as you wanting to learn and see it as good.  Just something to keep in mind.  I have no firsthand experience.

[rev ronin]

Pass fail courses count as hours, but not quality hours.  Thus, If you had 100 hours of graded courses, and 10 hours of pass/fail, each graded course would count for that much bigger a chunk of your overall GPA.  By the time I entered PA school, I had about 50 semester hours of pass/fail courses, about 1/6th of my total coursework to that point.