Downward Trend Junior Year: I Joined the IB Program and it is tanking my grades

<p>Here is the situation, Freshman and Sophmore year were great I made mostly A's with B's my cumulative GPA at the end of sophmore year was 3.81. Junior year I decided to partake in the IB program without having taken pre-ib classes freshman and sophmore year. This gave me as well as my friends a disadvantage because we were immersed into the IB program without enough preparation. As a result my semester grades are going to be terrible
B
B
B
A
A
C
D- 69- teacher won't round</p>

<p>I mean I just can't have a D on my transcript right? I mean I put myself at a great disadvantage with having a D on my transcript. The D is in my "IB" precalculus class. My school decided that there should be three precalculus classes: on level, honors precalculus, and IB precalculus.Let's just say the IB precalculus is ridiculously hard and my honors precalculus friends are breezing through. Regardless, I might be stuck with a possible D on my transcript. So should I just switch out of the IB program now (second semester of junior year), or finish this year and take all ap classes senior year? Or should I stick with the program. How do you think my current downward trends would look to top schools, I wanted to apply to UVA, Brown, Harvard, Yale, Berkley, but now with my terrible grades junior year, looks like I will be getting a lot of rejection letters. So help me out...what do you think?</p>

<p>bump…</p>

<p>a D is pretty low…
the same thing happened to me.
I had straight A’s and now with all my AP classes I have half B’s and half A’s and my GPA went from a 3.95 to a 3.65
Colleges will be lenient with the B’s and maybe the C’s but the D hmmm I don’t think so.
It’s not the end of the year though! so don’t worry… try getting a C at least, or talk with your counselor, perhaps you should drop down a level if its that hard?</p>

<p>you can cross off all the ivy schools on your list with that D,or even C for that matter unless you have some beyond amazing ECs</p>

<p>any other takers…</p>

<p>Unfortunately, a poor junior year is going to put you out of the running at all Ivies and most of the top 20 USNWR schools, especially if you have a C and even a D. If you’d only had A’s and B’s, then it probably wouldn’t have a HUGE negative impact, especially if the B’s were high enough for you to raise them to A’s for the final year grade (that is, if your school calculates a final year grade for each year-long course like mine). </p>

<p>All I can advise at this point is for you to keep working hard second semester. If you can show great improvement from one semester to the next, you’ll still have a chance at the more selective schools, even if they’re not Ivies. Don’t lose faith in yourself; I was in a similar situation when I received my first semester report card and found that I had 4 B’s and only 2 A’s (though all my classes were academic, with four AP’s, one beyond AP, and an honors course). Try to do the best you can second semester! Believe me, you still have plenty of college options, even if they don’t include Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. :)</p>