<p>First of all I agree with, what seems to me, as the majority who say to take your lumps and pass with a C. You have no valid excuse for your poor performance in second semester neuroscience -every student with high aspirations these days has to deal with stress. More to the point, when you make a mistake in the workplace you aren’t given a chance to make it up. You have to take responsibility for your actions and work around them, not try to hide from your mistakes. That’s part of growing up.
From a practicality standpoint:
While your grade may be changed on your transcript, there may also be an annotation that says that you retook the class. The admissions officers of the colleges in question would thus know that you’d failed -or at least done poorly in- the class and treat your transcript with some measure of skepticism -well I would anyways, I can’t really speak for an admissions officer. Additionally your teachers/GC may mention your retaken class in their rec letters which may not go over well with admissions officers. IN terms of class rank/valedictorian, the valedictorian position is technically announced well after your application is due -sometime in second semester- so it’s not like that will or should make a difference in your decision, and as other members have posted your principle may deny you the valedictorian position for “gaming the system”. As far as straight up class rank is concerned, I doubt getting one C would drop your class rank so much tat it would make a difference. Maybe from 1st to 10th or 15th which, out of close to 300 kids is still a very good ranking.</p>
<p>I just felt the need to post again to reassure you that this C won’t matter! Take it. Your grades are extremely good. Every year, people get accepted into the Ivies with Bs or a C (sometimes 2!). You challenged yourself.
So if you get rejected, it’ll be because you lacked in other areas.</p>
<p>A C won’t matter too much, but a D or F WILL hurt you. Think of it as an opportunity cost. Is potentially getting an A -and wasting a summer doing it- worth having colleges think/know that you failed a class -depending on how stuff is annotated on your transcript?</p>
<p>
Is this a serious question? Do you actually think there is ANY college that would WANT you to fail a class?</p>
<p>And @bodangles is right - account sharing isn’t allowed.</p>
<p>I mean, I have a great story and my extra curricular activities are pretty cool. Maybe some college admissions officers would want to accept me, but wouldn’t have the heart to do it with a C? I don’t know, I just romanticize college admissions.</p>
<p>For top schools, the issue will be first: do you make the cut, academically. <em>One</em> <em>semester</em> C won’t matter. A D or F will be a huge red flag that will push your application aside. You’d then have to “make up” for the red flag with everything else. With one C, you dont have to “make up” for it as long as the rest of your transcript is solid and so everything else is a “plus”.
You’ve lost your sense of perspective on the educational process and that’s more worrisome for your admission, because this may pop up in your essays or recommendations.</p>
<p>Holistic review compares to you the area you are from. Since you goto a top private in CA you will have INSANELY high standards to get into top tier colleges.</p>
<p>When I saw your transcript I was impressed UNTIL you said 3 in Calc BC, that really made me lose a lot of respect for you, if the adcon thinks that something it’ll hurt you badly. The C or D in Neuroscience will be bad too. </p>
<p>My advice is to take the D to keep your GPA intact, you really need that top number 1 spot because of how highly ranked your school is. Second write about hardships in your essay because that’ll lower the grade requirements they’ll judge you on. </p>
<p>bomerr, stop stressing the poor kid. As for writing about hardships, are you inviting him to make those up? o_O Nowhere in the post is OP asking about essay topics or mentioning hardships. This is a super high achieving student attending a top private school. S/he’ll get into a top 20 university/LAC with that C. Anyone who’s top 30% from that school (basically) will.
I think OP needs to spend time outside of his/her school bubble, that’ll be more useful than worrying about that C. </p>
<p>@MYOS1634
How old are you? What schools are you applying to? </p>
<p>“This is a super high achieving student attending a top private school. S/he’ll get into a top 20 university/LAC with that C. Anyone who’s top 30% from that school (basically) will.”</p>
<p>That really isn’t true at all. Schools such as the Ivys or UCLA/Cal don’t admit people JUST because they are high achieving. They SCALE the achievement to the environmental (that is what Hollistic Review is) So in OP’s case they’ll expect through the roof stats because the OP attends a top private in CA and if they don’t see that, like because he got a 3 in Calc + C or even a D, then next/waitlist it is. Getting a C or a low AP score is much worse for OP as compared to someone going to a lower rank school. </p>
<p>If he looses his class rank it’ll hurt him even more. </p>
<p>He needs to mitigate that bad grade with a good excuse. </p>
<p>bomerr: you should know I’m not “applying” to any school. As for my age, well, that’s an impolite question to ask to someone who’s quite a bit older and presumably has a bit more experience in the field than you do.</p>
<p>Of course they scale achievement to environment, but they’re also not stupid and know what a top 30% from a top private school represents. </p>
<p>Will OP get into every school s/he applies to? Absolutely not. But OP will get into quite a few top 20 universities/LACs. And if OP doesn’t get into his/her “dream school”, it won’t be because of that C (which, remember, would otherwise be an F and an A since OP wants to game the system, and that F <em>would</em> be mentioned by the GC.) The only kids from OP’s school who are shutout are the arrogant ones who only apply to highly selective colleges that are a crapshoot for everyone. Hopefully OP will make a smart college list and use his/her GC’s very good advice. </p>
<p>“trying to mitigate that bad grade with a good excuse” would actually be a bad idea if it is an excuse, not a reason, and even worse if the “excuse” is made up for the purpose of the application. However I’m pretty sure the GC office wouldn’t stand for it, seeing the damage it may cause the application (whiney and privilege don’t read well).</p>
<p>@ MYOS1634</p>
<p>If you are old and you aren’t applying to college then you don’t have real world, on the ground, in field experience of how it is right now. </p>
<p>Btw do you notice the logical inconstancy here?</p>
<p>“OP will get into quite a few top 20 universities/LACs”</p>
<p>“The only kids from OP’s school who are shutout are the arrogant ones who only apply to highly selective colleges that are a crapshoot for everyone.”</p>
<p>The top 20 are the schools are a crapshot for everyone. </p>
<p>On a side-note, not getting into a school you wanna goto does make all that hard work a total waste when you could have gotten in with 1/3rd the rigor. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you really want to go there? How many times have you been through the process?</p>
<p>By the way, the 3 in calc was in ab, while still in Honors MA (I self studied a whole semester of AP Calc the week before).</p>
<p>I can hide it, right? I’m in bc right now, so I could just show them the bc score (it’ll be a 5) and they wont ask any questions?</p>
<p>I don’t see why I’m being scrutinized over the 3? Especially in a self studied course?</p>
<p>bigyonb, don’t worry about it - get that 5 in BC and the self studied 3 won’t matter. Or you can make it a case of “I love math so much I decided to study Calc on a whim and took the exam, and since after a week of study I was able to get a 3, I threw myself into BC as a junior…” But overall you’re right, it won’t matter and no one will know since they’ll only see the BC 5 (or nothing - taking Calc BC is more important to admissions than taking the test, although it’s always good to take the test and score a 5. :p)
However be careful to keep a math next year. Since you’re competitive for top math classes, try to take Calc 3 (MV, or discrete, or linear algebra, the title may be different.)</p>
<p>@MrMom62 </p>
<p>Twice; </p>
<p>I learned a lot from the 1st time because I saw where my peers got into and what their stats were. </p>