can you remove bad grades from your GPA? -- Virtually Advising Q+A

The Q: I was an engineering major as an undergraduate, but I changed my major to international relations at the beginning of my third year. I want to apply to graduate school in international relations, but I did much worse in those engineering classes, and they're bringing down my GPA. How do I calculate my GPA without the unneeded engineering classes, so it reflects how much better I did in international relations?

The A: Unfortunately, your GPA is your GPA. There's no legitimate way I know of to hide bad grades or have them removed from your transcript. Even if you did try to cover them up in your application (which would be a bad idea anyway), grad schools would find out the full story when they see your official transcript.

Colleges often calculate your major GPA as well as your overall GPA, though. If yours doesn't or you're in a number-crunchy mood, you can always do it yourself with some scrap paper and a calculator:

For each international relations class you took, multiply the number of credits the class was worth by the GPA equivalent of the grade you got in the class. (An A in a four-credit class would be 4 x 4, or 16.)
Once you've done this for every class, add up all those numbers and jot the total down. Also add up the total number of credits all those classes were worth.
Divide the first number by the second, and you have your international relations GPA.

You may want to call up whichever office at your school handles academic records, though. Odds are they already do that calculation for you, or can do it pretty quickly if you asked.

At any rate, you should take heart, because admissions officials at every grad school you apply to will receive your full application. Yeah, that means they'll know you got off to a rough start and didn't do so hot in your engineering classes. But it also means they'll see that your grades improved over time (which looks way better than when they go the other way), and that you excelled in classes that are much more directly related to the program you're applying to. They'll also read what I bet will be excellent recommendation letters from your professors, as well as a strong personal essay -- not to mention a list of other activities and experiences that testify to what a great job you'll do studying IR as a grad student. If you do/did well on the GRE, then you'll be in even better shape!

So don't be afraid of those low engineering grades. They're as much a part of your history as the good things, and accepting that fact will put you in a much better position to admit to your weaknesses while also emphasizing your strengths.

—Myles Helfand, General Advisor