Failing a Class Junior Year

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I completed my junior year of high-school and passed all of my classes with As, except for Pre-Calculus H, which I ended up failing. </p>

<p>I cannot say that I am surprised since all the factors merged to result in this (poor teacher who recites, not teaches, lack of extra-credit opportunities, few grade inputs per quarter, etc.) </p>

<p>I am devastated, since I consider myself an excellent student. My GPA is a 4.0 (within the A-range), I hold in multiple leadership positions within and beyond my high-school, and I will have completed 12 AP classes by the time I graduate. </p>

<p>I plan on applying to Tufts, Amherst, Williams, John Hopkins, and other prestigious academic institutions by senior year. </p>

<p>How drastically will failing this class impact my prospects of getting accepted into the aforementioned colleges/universities? </p>

<p>I am really concerned.</p>

2

<p>Can you talk to your GC about what happened? Is there a way to take another course in pre-calc over the summer? How have you done math in the past? How were your grades throughout the semester? Did you ask for extra help or talk to anybody about this during the semester?</p>

3

<p>Thank you for the reply. </p>

<p>I have not talked with my guidance counselor yet (I just received my final grades). I am guessing that there is probably a credit-recovery system in place at my high-school to account for the failure, but what I am concerned about is how this will show up on my transcript.</p>

<p>Freshman year of high-school, I received a solid A in math, Sophomore year a B, and I have always been in advanced Honors courses for Math. I consider myself competent in math (not brilliant, though) so failing this class was a crippling blow for me. I plan on taking AP Calculus AB next year since I believe that I can handle it and want to show colleges that Junior year Math was an anomaly in my academic record. </p>

<p>As for the rest of my grades, I juggled four AP classes this year, as well as one other in Sophomore year, and I managed to receive As in all of them, with the exception of AP Chemistry Sophomore year, which was a B.</p>

<p>“Did you ask for extra help or talk to anybody about this during the semester?”</p>

<p>My Math teacher and guidance counselor were already wary of this, but I didn’t come in for extra-help since 1) My teacher is a very poor one and he cannot explain a simple math concept coherently, 2) I was juggling multiple things after-school every week (extra-curriculars, volunteering work, etc.) and 3) I stupidly assumed that I would be able to rise above it independently by using outside sources, like videos, online textbooks, etc. </p>

<p>This all culminated in the mess that I have now sitting before me. I plan on e-mailing my counselor about it (school will be out in a matter of days and I have no opportunity to meet with her) and seeing what my options are.</p>

<p>I have not told my parents about this (I would be crushed by their response), so I turned to CollegeConfidential and other Internet sources for help.</p>

4

<p>Above all, when you go to college, do NOT try to overcome your academic difficulties by yourself. Take this as lesson learned. Your profs will expect you to come to them; they will not, usually, come to you because they expect you to behave as an adult would. The earlier the better. If he or she cannot help, ask for someone who can. It’s on you. In college, this problem would be seen as of your creation.</p>

5

<p>This may sound blunt- but there will be applicants (to the aforementioned schools) that do not have an F at all. </p>

<p>However, that doesn’t mean you won’t get accepted to one of those schools. Come back strong in the first semester of senior year. Also, will you be able to take the Calc AB after failing precalc? If so- is it a good choice to do so? Just wondering.</p>

6

<p>Do you have a “F” for the year. You totally flunked the course, or did you fail the course last quarters and can average it out.<br>
Frankly, I think your chances for the schools listed are zero unless something very unusual happens. There are kids with your stats without an F, but an A in Precalc H junior year that are not going to be accepted at those schools because there aren’t enough spaces for all who apply with those stats. So, yes, that F makes it very easy to drop you, when these Admissions Officers are looking for reason to cull at these highly selective schools.</p>

<p>My advice is to start looking at some far less selective schools that do not have to look for reasons to cut students and look for reasons to accept. </p>

<p>You certainly do NOT have a 4.0 unweighted at this point in time, and junior grades are the ones scrutinized. So, though you can work with your GC to mitigate the damages in that course, and find out what options you have in terms of retaking the course and whatever, if an actual F shows up in math junior year, without some really good reason, or remarkable hook, you are out of the running for the top schools. </p>

7

<p>It’s definitely going to hurt your chances at any highly selective university. </p>

8

<p>Thanks for all the replies.</p>

<p>“You certainly do NOT have a 4.0 unweighted at this point in time…”</p>

<p>I should have clarified as to what I was referring to, but my overall GPA is still within the A-range. I received high-As Freshman and Sophomore years (resulting in a 98.21 GPA score for both years) and I have a low 90.51 as my current Junior-year GPA , so I think it will balance out, but perhaps I am mistaken. I referred to the CollegeBoard GPA conversion-scale, which lists a 93-96 percent grade as a 4.0 If I’m mistaken, please feel free to correct me.</p>

<p>“Did you fail the course last quarters and can average it out…”</p>

<p>I started off with a C in Pre-Calculus Honors for the first quarter and everything fell downhill from there.</p>

<p>“Also, will you be able to take the Calc AB after failing precalc? If so- is it a good choice to do so? Just wondering”.</p>

<p>This year was a bad one for me in terms of Math. Again, I am competent in Math (I received As and Bs both Freshman and Sophomore year in Honors classes), and I think that with a new teacher, after-school help sessions, and help from peers (instead of solely self-reliance), I will be able to bounce back and prove otherwise to colleges.</p>

<p>“Above all, when you go to college, do NOT try to overcome your academic difficulties by yourself. Take this as lesson learned. Your profs will expect you to come to them; they will not, usually, come to you because they expect you to behave as an adult would. The earlier the better. If he or she cannot help, ask for someone who can. It’s on you. In college, this problem would be seen as of your creation”.</p>

<p>Thanks for articulating this. My main problem is that I see seeking help as a sign of intellectual vulnerability, so I always try to cast it off academic issues as things that I have to resolve myself without the help of others.</p>

<p>“This may sound blunt- but there will be applicants (to the aforementioned schools) that do not have an F at all”.</p>

<p>“Frankly, I think your chances for the schools listed are zero unless something very unusual happens. There are kids with your stats without an F, but an A in Precalc H junior year that are not going to be accepted at those schools because there aren’t enough spaces for all who apply with those stats. So, yes, that F makes it very easy to drop you, when these Admissions Officers are looking for reason to cull at these highly selective schools”.</p>

<p>I had a fear of this, but I had assumed that since my transcript/background closely resembles those of some of the applicants that have been accepted into these universities (I did some research on College Confidential regarding college admission results for these colleges), I would be able to rectify for this mistake. Thanks again, though, for this.</p>

9

<p>“If an actual F shows up in math junior year, without some really good reason, or remarkable hook…”</p>

<p>Sorry to pester you about this, but can you please specify as to what you mean by a “remarkable hook”? How can the damage be mitigated beyond re-taking the class or summer school?</p>

10

<p>You wouldn’t convert it to the college board scale. You would keep it exactly as it is. Colleges will also look at your grades over the years and 98% to 90% is a huge drop. That drop in itself is enough to keep you out of all the schools you listed</p>

11

<p>If you are, say a hot basketball recruit for Duke, or other highly desired athlete, or if your father has been donating millions to the college over time and is working out a deal for some endowment funds at some school, or if you are a severely challenged student who has lived in a cardboard box and whose parents were both incarcerated; those things might do it. Or if you published a novel is well acclaimed, became a national or international celebrity. An F in precalc just might be overlooked. But if there are stacks of kids just like you that the school is trying to decide who to cull, yes, the F is going to be an easy out. Even with a retake in summer school, even with some mealy explanation about some teacher that wasn’t very good. If the school takes action and makes the teacher change the grade, that would work, but if the issue is not so flagrant that your grade stays, then you have the problem. Not everyone in your class flunked that course, I dare say. </p>

<p>GPAs are generally converted to an unwieghted standard and with a 4.0 being a perfect, the conversions certainly are not going to give you that. </p>

<p>If you want to give it a go, do apply to the schools you most want, but understand that your chances of acceptance have dropped drastically, and make sure you also spend some extra time looking for some college where you would have a realistic chance of acceptance. If you focus on such a college search, it could be the benefit of what happened, because, frankly, even without a failing grade, your chances were not way up there for acceptances at those schools. What are your ACT/SAT test scores? THose scores can up your chances at a number of schools that are not as highly selective as what you have listed, but are still considered top notch. Remember there are about 3000 colleges in this country, and you certainly can find a top 10% school that is very likely to take you. But when you are talking the top 1%, it gets filter gets very fine. To the point where “perfect” applicants are often turned away for no discernable reason. And many of them did not take the time to do more than cherry pick name schools. The time you spend in finding good schools that are not so well known that the line to get into them has 10x the seats available, is something too few students bother to take and many are hit between the eyes when they don’t get into what they thought were likely choices. Start looking at some school like University of Denver, Marquette, Rollins, all very good schools without the name recognition and without such heavy competition for admissions. Might get some merit money too. A lot of high stat kids end up at a safety they just tacked onto their list. You KNOW you have an issue and that the likelihood is not there for the most selective schools, so you can start working on a list of schools that will likely take you despite this issue and can meet your other requirements. If one of those requirements is that they don’t take kids with an issue like yours…well, that’s a problem. You’ve just eliminated yourself.</p>

12

<p>cptofthehouse:</p>

<p>While I appreciate the feedback, it is extremely presumptuous of you to start listing schools that I should be “looking into”, considering that I have not provided a concrete/full account of my background as a student.</p>

<p>Also, there are students in my school who were accepted into UMass Amherst, which is roughly on par with the University of Denver in terms of national ranking, despite their transcripts being littered with Cs and Ds. I have no such background.</p>

<p>I didn’t publish this post to read sugar-coated, congratulatory comments. I am interested in having a realistic perspective on this, but I feel as though your comments are marred by unwarranted assumptions. </p>

13

<p>I am concerned that you have not yet told your parents about this grade. You must tell them, and you need to meet together with your counselor immediately to find a solution. You still have the entire summer ahead of you to manage this issue if you deal with it now. If you hide your head in the sand and continue to blame the teacher, it is not going to get better or go away.</p>

14

<p>OP, there are professionals who advise students on their prospects and other college matters. You might convince your parents to pay for a meeting with one of these to get his or her opinion of the impact of this F. </p>

<p>Most of us here are amateurs or worse. </p>

<p>However, your first recourse should be to your guidance counselor at school, who is going to be considerably more experienced in this than most of us. I hope. And do so asap so as to leave yourself some opportunities.</p>

15

<p>First thing you need to do is stop blaming the teacher for your grade. Unless everyone else in the class failed with you, the problem is you and you alone. Your grade in math started slipping last year, continued its downward slide this year, and you did nothing about it. It obvious you were hitting the dreaded Math Wall. That’s on you, not everyone else. And unless you make up the class, I really don’t see how they’re going to let you take Calc AB next year, a passing grade in pre-calc is usually a prerequisite. You’ve dug yourself quite a hole, the first step to getting out of it is to stop digging.</p>

16

<p>^^true dat. spoken like a fellow parent and adult, MrMom.</p>

17

<p>If the F shows up on your transcript IMO it will hurt if not end any realistic hope of getting into an elite school. And I can’t imagine your HS would let you take AP calculus without passing the prerequisite course. I suggest you talk to your guidance counselor and get his/her assessment of the damage to your college applications as well as a suggestion for how to best move forward.</p>

<p>And I agree with @MrMom62 that you need to take responsibility for your failure. An F in a class is not something that happens overnight – if you struggle with math (and given your downard trend in grades in that subject it seems to be the case) then you needed to do something before it got to a point where you had even a remote chance of failing the class – be it seeing the teacher after class, asking a fellow student to work with you, hiring a tutor, looking at online sources, asking for additional problem/solution sets (even if you don’t get extra credit) etc. or, if need be, dropping down to a lower level of math mid-year. Extracurricular activities must take a back seat to passing a class. You will likely come across bad teachers even in college and you will have bad bosses at work – you can’t throw up your hands and blame them, but you have to work through the situation. </p>

<p>Sorry if your are not getting the responses you wanted on this forum… </p>