Fail grade in transcript vs "not allotted" in transcript

Question

I am an international student in my final year of Electrical Engineering. I enrolled in an RnD course last semester and tagged it as an honor course. This is a semester-long research project where you work closely with one of the professors in your department. The work I did in the semester was satisfactory. However, it wasn't AA-worthy, so I decided to work on the project during the summer (the professor agreed). The professor I worked with is known for allotting the grades for his other courses even past the grade submission deadline. (In one of the courses, the grades were assigned two days before the course registration for the next semester began). Hence I assumed that I could work through the summer and have my grade evaluated before the start of the next semester. However, I could not get hold of him, so the grade column shows "not allotted" for this course.

So I talked about this with the professor guide at the start of this semester, had my evaluation done, and my grade submitted to the academic office within a month. However, the Dean did not approve of this, and I am looking at a potential Fail grade in this course. My current transcript still shows "not allotted".

I am applying for MS to top US grad schools. So my question is - Should I submit the current transcript with justification (in the SoP) or the updated transcript(which has the fail grade) with proper justification? The updated transcript has a slightly higher converted GPA (3.92 vs 3.9). On one hand, since I did not actually fail the course, a proper justification should suffice. On the other hand, since it's an RnD Course, it could negatively affect my chances (not sure how much, could someone shed light on this) and so "not allotted" looks better than the alternative. Also, if I do decide to submit my current transcript and get accepted, will I have problems later since the grad schools require official transcripts to be submitted after completion of undergraduate studies, and that would have the fail grade?

Answer 1

On one hand, since I did not actually fail the course

Actually, it seems you did actually fail the course. It doesn't seem like you had any official arrangement or explicit agreement to receive a different grade by completing the work past the semester, and as of right now your institution (i.e., the Dean) is not in agreement with your assertion that you should get late credit for it, and your professor has not taken any action to support your position and get it changed.

Also, if I do decide to submit my current transcript and get accepted, will I have problems later since the grad schools require official transcripts to be submitted after completion of undergraduate studies, and that would have the fail grade?

Yes, this failed grade will eventually come through. Whether or not that will affect anything is entirely up to the institution admitting you as a graduate student.

If you think you should be credited for the course, you really need to work that through your current institution, not just expect to explain it away in your application materials. That means working with the professor and/or dean to get your grade adjusted if appropriate. It's your current institution that decides what your grades are.

Yes, you can attempt to explain your grade in your graduate applications, but consider that there are good reasons and bad reasons to have a poor grade, and "I thought I could get special treatment but didn't" is not necessarily a "good reason".

Answer 2

Should I submit the current transcript with justification (in the SoP) or the updated transcript(which has the fail grade) with proper justification? The updated transcript has a slightly higher converted GPA (3.92 vs 3.9).

I guess the question boils down to whether the upside of the extra +0.02 in your GPA is worth the downside of having to explain the fail grade. This is a clear NO: 0.02 is in the noise and is unlikely to have any affect at all, whereas even if they buy your explanation that "my failing grade should actually be an A+", it still introduces confusion. Further, giving explanations or excuses in your SOP, while sometimes necessary, is very difficult to do successfully.

will I have problems later since the grad schools require official transcripts...and that would have the fail grade

Could be. It would be very good to resolve this with your institution so your transcript does not have a failing grade. It sounds like your professor should be dealing with the dean directly, since he allowed / encouraged you to do what you did. Failing that, I would recommend explaining the situation to your preferred graduate school after you are accepted but before you accept their offer.