Failed elective class-would it greatly impact admissions chances?

Applying to College
1

Some background first:

I am a sophomore in High School who is taking mostly AP/Honors classes. Granted, I do well in these classes (high B’s-high A’s). However, it was in freshman year that I failed the aforementioned “Intro to Engineering” class—with a 63—and dropped the class after a semester and replaced with a psychology course, which I absolutely excelled in.

Keep in mind, as this was in the first semester where practically everyone was remote and virtual, and we were just given a program to work worth and were expected to produce great works and feats of Engineering likewise that of Tesla or Edison. Additionally, my Engineering teacher (who is a nice person herself) was on maternity leave, and had a long-term substitute who had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

On the transcript, it might looks like an anomaly at first—an F in a flood of A’s and B’s. The class (a “CTE” course in Texas) does not count towards GPA calculations per my district. However, it greatly bugs me, and I was wondering if it would greatly affect college admissions chances in 2-3 years to come—especially considering how admissions are increasingly becoming competitive.

2

For Texas public universities that use class rank instead of HS GPA, what matters is whether the grade affects your HS GPA that your high school uses for determining class rank.

For colleges that recalculate HS GPA, each college may differ on whether such a course is included. For colleges with some sort of subjective review for admission that includes looking at your list of courses and grades, a poor grade may stand out in a bad way.

4

You might ask your HS GC if you can retake that class in an online credit recovery format (there are many providers of these courses). Then you could get the F off of your transcript. Not all schools allow students to do this, but most do.

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