Hi all, I plan to apply to UC Berkeley and UCLA etc
They both require me to complete Calculus 2 by fall
But if I can only complete up to Calculus 1 by fall, can I still apply and promise them I will take Calculus 2 by spring???
I’m taking Pre Cal in winter right now and I kind of messed up and near C and a B average. Not that I’m bad at math, I just messed up on couple of exams out of 4 of them and I don’t want to risk getting a C and I don’t even want to get a B which will hurt me.(Made the dumbest mistakes on the easiest problems)
If I drop it I can save my GPA and get a W without having to settle for a B at best.
I can do all in my powers to crash Precalculus in Spring and try to take Calculus in summer or take it in fall but I won’t have my pre req completed.
Is it possible? I think I’m taking way too many risks. Three ways of choosing poison
Just spoke with a UCB rep and he said it’s okay to finish them by spring although they prefer most of them done by fall. I’m just really worried about Calc 2 being pushed back to Spring 17. All other courses will be completed by Fall 2016
He says having to take calc2 in spring won’t be too much of a problem unless I have other pre reqs to take. And I’ll have at least calc 1 done by fall so.
Not to mention the application specifically asks for the courses you plan to take in the Spring, and that’s where you’ll put your planned calculus class. I’m doing that right now. I’m starting my final spring semester and am having to take an accelerated Calc 1/2 class.
Pre-reqs to a major are the most important classes. If your major requires, let’s say, 5 pre-reqs and you wait until the spring before you transfer to take them all, that doesn’t look good. It’s not really a situation anyone would find themselves in, but if a person were in a situation like that, they’d be admitted without the admissions people not really having a chance to see how well they would do in the classes most relevant to the major.
You want to go to Haas, right? Plenty of Haas applicants are taking their semester of calc in the spring before they transfer. I sit next to one in my calc class, and I’m one as well. It really isn’t that big of a deal and the only way it would be an issues is it you failed because there’d be no opportunity to retake it and you’d have to wait a year and apply again.
@briank82 Thanks. Like I said, I had an appointment with a rep from UCB at my school today. So glad they were here at my school when it was the last day for me to withdraw(ashamed) from my precalculus class. He said it was not a big deal specially when my recent GPA is about 3.77, with UC GPA of 3.73.
and he says Haas only looks at recent 5 years of grades and I have a substantial upward trend with 4.0 GPA in 15 units(7 UC units) in the semester working 15 hours. I have not taken math in 10 years since high school.
I’m a returning student who has been working(I still work) and he says I shouldn’t worry too much about a W as long as my math grade trend is downwards. Also he says although I did poorly, was not dedicated a long time ago, I took off 5 years from school and came back and banging out 3.77 overall(52 units latter), 3.73 UC GPA(44 units/latter), I shouldn’t look too bad although average GPA admitted to Haas is 3.85.
I have no problem with math, theorem or algebra itself. I get the theory, I understand, I’m good with algebra, I’m good with computing numbers. The problem I think is that because I lack time compared to other students, I end up not investing enough time to practice and I get horribly confused on some of the easiest problems. Geometry was walk i the park for me and Algebra 2 wasn’t bad at all for me.
So I was just concerned. I wanted to finish everything by fall 2016 but because I just dropped out of precalculus class, I will have to crash it in spring(Enrolled into a wait list quickly) and Calc 2 got pushed back to spring 17, provided I take calculus by fall 2016.
Because I was making silly mistakes and I was getting confused on the exam sometimes, despite of having an understanding and the ability to solve the problem as directed by the instructors upon instruction, and sloppy mistakes here and there cost me a lot and I have other issues outside of school that I need to take care of and I was just losing confidence, under pressure and I had to risk too much for so little(Best I could’ve do was a B, being stuck at 77, 78% average)
I swear I missed a whole bunch of points on the easiest problems. I don’t have a problem with complicated computations of numbers.
When I was early within my math courses like Trig/Pre-Cal I had the same issue as you because I wasn’t paying enough attention to detail, by the time you reach Calc2 that should be near gone. Enjoy your mathematical journey.
