Yes my daughter who has never had a problem with math before has had a hard time with online BC Calculus. She has started working with my husband and it has helped a lot. I was going to go the tutor route if that didn’t work out. I have heard lots of stories of a tough times this year and hope colleges are being understanding.
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@inthegarden - lots of calc stress at our house x2 kids and both with ED acceptances too - they take the message on the acceptances that “you should keep the same grades throughout your senior year” very serious. I suggested they drop down a level too - and I got death stares!
They have both found Kahn Academy to be a huge help and are putting more time in for Calc vs any subject. Highly recommend your daughter check out Kahn Academy. Calc is hard (at least for my kids) and we are seeing anxiety around the class, as they run out of time on the unit tests and exams. The time crunch and inability to finish and check the work seems to be driving the anxiety - as they can work on the daily assignments as much as they want with no time constraints and get the problems right.
I honestly held my breath and was thankful they both took the final in December - as I imagined either or both having a complete panic attack.
Any chance extra time on the final could be negotiated with the teacher and help with the anxiety. Sounds like a positive that he wrote one of her recommendations and knows your daughter well. Mental health is a very valid factor for her to get assistance and showing a bit of grace during this time to all the students should be a rule not an exception.
I’ll give you my perspective. I’m currently in Calc BC and our class size was 19 students for first semester. Our second semester starts next week and the 19 has dropped down to 6 students.
From what I know, some of them have already got in ED, paid deposit and everything so they decided why take a challenging course when I have already completed my math graduation requirement.
Next case, the average grade in my calc bc class is around a 73% this is really bad if you think about it. My grade is currently an A but only a handful of us even had an A for first sem (4 students is what my teacher said). Since the class is very tough, students who are in the top ten of my grade are even dropping out since the class has damaged their GPA so much their ranks have dropped (good for me tho i jumped from 10 to 3!)
While second semester doesn’t really matter, if she’s doing fine, then I would say do it. But if she’s not understanding much and is concerned about her grade, then don’t think twice and drop it. Calc AB is a very tough course, I have experienced it myself and if you don’t have a good teacher, then it’s going to be even harder.
Since she’s not planning on doing anything with math in college, if she thinks she should drop, I would support her and let her drop.
hope that helps! 
No class is worth emotional stress like that. The point about covid/online really hurting the high school experience, esp for AP classes is probably a good one to mention.
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I won’t opine on the change as it relates to college simply because it’s all been said uptrend.
But I do think that there could be great value in figuring out how to be successful at this, whether it’s online tutoring, more time with dad, khan academy, or meeting with the teacher. None of this value has to do with college but with creating a space in her head where she can’t do something. A clearly bright kid should not have that before they leave high school! It’s fine to recognize that some things don’t come easily. It’s fine to recognize that sometimes things are presented in a way that they aren’t immediately accessible. But learning to learn, and believing you can, are really important life skills. She will end up cutting off a lot of options, many of which she may never have wanted, but some of which she may indeed want or need. Just my 2 cents worth…
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What options will she be cutting off? She’s already accepted ED and colleges wouldn’t want to rescind the ED unless really necessary. If students are bound to ED, well colleges are too.
The options aren’t about college, @theloniusmonk .
The options she cuts off are in life, when she doesn’t do things she believes she can’t-- especially when she can.
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I’m waiting to see what OP and her D decide, then the college’s reaction. So this is just a comment.
This gal, in my view, didnt cut anything off yet. She put in max effort and triumphed with an A grade. That IS a life lesson. She’s at least getting some support from Dad.
What’s at issue, to me, is the now high cost of proceeding in the same way.Yes, it’s a further lesson to plow on. Wouldn’t it be nice to do reasonably well on the final, learn something in retrospect? Sure it would. But is it necessary, having done her best and seen that result? How many times do we need to beat ourselves up, to learn something about ourselves?
Plus, she’s not leaving calc. Just my view. Now it’s up to OP and her daughter- and what the college thinks, if anything.
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Hi there,
Sorry to have not gotten back with you yet on this. I relayed the possible pros, cons , suggestions and various ways of looking at this to her and I guess it’s percolating in her head (along with her moods). I decided to let her own this, however she decides, and I don’t want to pressure or interfere, except maybe advise her how to word things if she does request a change. She’d have to do it soon if she decides to request it.
Her overall outlook seems much cheerier today (she had the last test of the grading period this morning, which she had been stressing over) and she nonchalantly said she thinks it was OK. The teacher has yet to grade the previous test…if that grade comes out soon and she did well then maybe the overall sense of stress and panic will have gone down and she’ll stick with the program. I’m OK with her dropping (if allowed and she feels she really needs to do it) but I think it wouldn’t hurt her to have the experience of facing a challenge and seeing she can overcome it , even if the final grade isn’t an A. I thinks she suffers from that type of perfectionism kids can get when they generally do well on almost anything they undertake as compared to their ( local) peers and are not used to struggling too much to be top of the class. She’s the kid who taught herself to read by osmosis at three years old (and was doing Suzuki violin pretty well at that age too so she doesn’t remember the hard part of learning basics). Obviously, with a 690 Math score she’s not a genius either, but that’s higher than scores of many of her small-town public school peers. Calc (even AB) is a whole new ballgame. I think it would be good if she can get a sense of mastery before going off to a bigger pond (even if she doesn’t take Calc again). I’ll give an update about her decision when I know anything.
On another note, her mock trial team won their first competition by a landslide last night (her first mock trial, ever, and she got a good individual review of her role). Didn’t hurt that the competition was a fancy-schmancy private-school team! So, I think the ‘ole confidence level is going up.
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