Any tips on avoiding remedial math?

College Search & Selection Community Colleges
1

<p>I'll be entering a community college soon, and my Math skills in HS aren't looking too good. Obviously I'd have to take the Accuplacer, but right now I'm taking College Algebra and not doing so hot. My math portion on the SAT wasn't great, either. (Plan on retaking that, too). I never tried in HS, something I regret deeply. During sophomore year I was extremely depressed, both of my APs I failed, and I'm class rank 108 out of 217. My cumulative GPA is a 2.5 Unweighted and a 3.21 weighted, and my current GPA is a 2.8 UW/3.4 W. I should be higher by the time I graduate. Only EC is my website/forum that I set up with a friend, currently picking up some steam. And I'm Ethiopian.</p>

<p>I have three questions:
1) Would taking remedial math look bad when transferring to a top tier 4 year university (IE Cornell, University of Rochester, University of Virginia, University of Michigan etc.)? Despite what I mentioned before, I am very good at Math, depending on how hard I study or pay attention, and these schools are very selective, but less selective when in comparison to upper tier schools like Stanford that only take like 1% of their transfers.
2) How long would I have to go to community college if taking remedial classes? I hear it doesn't count towards your college degree.
3) Is it true that the only way to get into colleges like the ones I mentioned before, you would have to be extremely competitive even as a high school student due to them looking at HS transcripts? :(</p>

<p>Sorry if this is in the wrong section. I'm still relatively new to this place.</p>

2

<p>1) If you transfer with a completed Associate’s degree, the fact that you took some remedial math classes should not impact your admission to a university. They are going to look at your overall GPA and the rigor/distribution of the classes you took.
2) It is true that remedial math classes will not count toward the credits you need to earn for an Associate’s degree. In general, no classes numbered below 100 are going to count. However, based on your high school performance, it looks like it will be beneficial to you to take one or two pre-college-level math classes to be prepared to do well in college-level math. If your intent is to transfer to a highly competitive university, you will need to do very well in math (and the rest of your) classes, so you need the extra preparation.
3) If you have an Associate’s degree with a high GPA and rigorous coursework, most universities are not going to spend a lot of time reviewing your high school transcript.</p>

3

<p>For # 3, a lot of top tier schools STILL look at high school transcripts and records and such. Unless you’re saying that if I do well enough, they won’t look at all, even a uni like Cornell or Northwestern.</p>

<p>Sorry if you did say this, your wording may have been iffy to me.</p>