The first semester of Junior year I took AP Calculus BC but ended up with a C. I felt really bad because it was my first C and because I barely had a basic understanding of the course. Over winter break I talked to my counselor and dropped out of BC and into AB. It was considerably easier and I finally caught up and pretty much mastered the course (I also took the AB AP test).
My question is:
Should I retake Calc BC for my Senior Year (the first semester will be audited because I already got a C and the reason I have this choice is because I’m also taking AP statistics as my last Math Credit) or should I take a class that might be useful like programming or AP Economics?
Personally, I don’t want to learn Calc 1 for the third time, even if it’s audited. But I’m going to be applying to decent engineering schools and Cornell CALS (my first choice, even though it’s a bit of a reach), So would dropping it and retaking it look better on my application? Or would it be pretty much the same if I didn’t retake and took another challenging class?
I personally think it would be good to take again and master.
Considering your performance in Calc BC, I would strongly advise you take it again senior year. If you’re using “another challenging class” as a euphemism for some laid-back, standard level math course, then you’re really not going to impress the adcoms by doing well in it. If this “challenging class” is indeed as challenging as Calc BC, then you’re probably going to perform just as poorly as you initially did in Calc BC. The reason you should retake Calc BC is that, through Calc AB, you’ve already mastered about half of the principles in Calc BC, and colleges enjoy seeing improvement over time.
You’ll have half of Calc BC as “audited” and half of calc BC as “taken for credit”, right? Or are you allowed to jump into Calc BC 2nd semester only, withou the first semester?
Thanks for the replies guys, and @MYOS1634 I still have to show up and i pass no matter what 1st semester, 2nd semester is regular.
Sounds good then. Your first semester will look serious ( MANY high schools have ab-bc as a sequence and adcoms won’t know your high school isn’t one of them ), you will have less work during first semester when all your applications are due, and you will learn upper level calculus second semester, Hcih will serve you in college. Win -win.