<p>So yeah, I had a really, really bad sophomore year... and i'm wondering what i can do to negate it a bit (I went from straight A's freshman year, to sophomore year: 5 B's first semester/3 B's + 1 sec 2nd semester). In addition, the C was in precalculus. I got B's in both Physics B and AP Bio. </p>
<p>People often have a bad freshman year, but sophomore year was my bad year :/. </p>
<p>It's not that I couldn't do the work in the classes, it's more that I felt really apathetic that year about everything for some reason. I know I can't chalk it off to a quarter life crisis though.</p>
<p>This year has been slightly better, I breezed through AP Calc BC with A's both semesters, and I got 1 A + 1 B in AP Chem. Rest are A's.</p>
<p>Next year, I'll be taking multivariable calc, physics c, and (possibly) linear algebra. </p>
<p>I have an ok math sat score (770). My ECs are pretty solid (sports, clubs, research, big business, etc). Class rank is decent (top 2-5%).</p>
<p>I'm really, truly not mentally retarded when it comes to math/science (i just screwed up majorly), is there anyway to get this across in the app? </p>
<p>I'm not fishing for sympathy or anything, so if I'm screwed, that's okay too, just let me know :-D.</p>
<p>I don't see how someone with your intelligence scored a C in precalc... Anywho, I don't know much on this matter so I'll just crawl out of here.</p>
<p>You're not entirely screwed. If you continue to keep it up during your senior course in Multi-variable etc. you might still have a good chance. Colleges do look for improvement. If you can come up with a good reason for your bad year- that would even be better- death in the family, teenage issues, medical issues etc. (I dont know what your actual situation was so I'm just making stuff up.)</p>
<p>I kinda screwed up 2nd semester pre calc too. If i'm lucky I'll get an A-, if not i'm stuck with a B+. I hope this doesn't screw me over. It's not that i'm not smart (i was a finalist at isef, etc) I just did a lot of stuff (mainly science fair research) at the beginning of hte semester which did not allow for as much time to study as I would have liked.</p>
<p>I think the fact that you're taking lin alg, and multivariable calc before you graduate high school is very impressive. You basically have 2 classes left if you were to go into engineering, actually only 1 with most programs. You can probably very easily double major in math and whatever else you wish to major in when you get to college. Well done. Any college admissions officer will be more impressed by that (assuming they don't think that linear algebra is like algebra 2 or something ;) ) than they will be turned off by your C in precalc was it?
Don't worry, is what I'm saying.</p>
<p>Moose, I dunno how either... Although I don't consider myself to be particularly intelligent, and I certainly wasn't hardworking then (or perhaps now).</p>
<p>WindCloudUltra, thanks for the encouragement, but I have no excuse, I was just stupid and lazy lol.</p>
<p>stasterisk, sure :D.</p>
<p>Coolphreak, a B is fine I'm pretty sure... Especially if you have good exrtacurics.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how I can negate this/attenuate the impact on my app?</p>
<p>scorp, thanks, yeah, I dunno... no one at my school is doing linear algebra as far as I know, but some people have said that it's not that great, and that the class isn't that hard either :/.</p>
<p>The only problem I see with taking linear algebra and vector calc is... where will you take it? If you take it at a community college, then you may die trying to do further math courses at MIT. I'm taking vector calc and diff eq next year, senior year, in order to not be too bored with my days.... I fully plan on retaking them if I go to a really good school, if not, then I'll still retake one of them probably.</p>
<p>It seems to me that MIT would expect you to get better grades than that even with many extenuating circumstances... so you better have sweet junior year grades</p>
<p>Also, if it makes a difference, my cumulative gpa shouldn't be <em>that</em> bad. It's about a 3.7-7.5 at the moment, I guess if they do only to 1 decimal, it'll be a 3.8 :D.</p>