<p>Hey guys, I'm new to the site so forgive me if I'm posting this in the wrong section. Let me break down my situation:</p>
<p>I am a junior in high school right now. I am a full IB student. My grades are and have all been A's and B's except for math throughout my high school career ( C both freshman year and sophomore year in which i took algebra 2 and pre-calc, respectively). I am currently in an IB math 2 class (stats and calc). I received a D first semester, and will likely receive a D for second semester. I have already spoken to the counselor and will be retaking this class next year as a senior. </p>
<p>My question is:</p>
<p>Will all colleges deny me acceptance because of getting a D even though i'm retaking the class? Will I be able to redeem myself through retaking?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>P.S- I'm mainly interested in attending the U.C's </p>
<p>Well – it may be a problem because the UC’s only look at your gpa from 10th and 11th grade for admissions, so even though you repeat the class as a senior, and have it replace the D grade, it won’t show up in your cumulative grade until mid-year 12th grade-- too late to help you with admissions for the UCs. If your other grades are sufficient to keep a basically good gpa, then you may be alright at some UCs. Course rigor will also be a factor, so that may help you. Good luck</p>
<p>Can you retake it in the summer? </p>
<p>AlwaysLearn- unfortunately not. My only choice is to retake it my senior year. </p>
<p>PetraElise- thanks for the info. </p>
<p>You are very welcome. D15 benefitted from me helping her older sister apply to the UC’s for this fall – she got a “D” in Spanish 1 as a sophomore (college course taught in Spanish from day one-- nightmare, lol). She had planned on re-taking it her senior year until we realized that the UC’s only look at those two years for admit decisions. Happily, with a different teacher she is now getting an A this time around. It is definitely still worth repeating the class, because it will remove it from your gpa, and although the UCs dont use freshman and senior grades for the UC GPA, they do still look at them.</p>
<p>If you get a D in it, it won’t count for you a-g requirements so make sure you have everything covered. You may have to take another math class over the summer to make up for it (statistics?)
And obviously retake senior year since it’ll come up when your senior grades are reviewed (but only if you’re admitted).</p>
<p>Typically, one should never take an AP/IB class where one is likely to get lower than a B. With a C in math freshman and sophomore year, you should have been advised to take the Honors or regular version of the class, it’d have hurt you much less than that D.</p>
<p>perhaps a tangent, but retaking the class is unlikely to result in a better grade unless you figure out what’s going wrong and do something different. Given the C’s you got in math 9th and 10th grade, it was perhaps inevitable that as the difficulty stepped up your grade would go down. </p>
<p>So review how you got here. Is the teacher not good at explaining the concepts? If so, have you asked for extra help, asked other kids in the class who seem to get it for help, looked for other books other than the class text to explain concepts? There are tons of resources online such as iTunesU that cover match subjects. The Teaching Company also has a great set of videos; expensive, but your local library may have a copy.</p>
<p>And take a critical look at how much time you are really spending outside class working on this. In a college math/science class is is typical to spend 6-9 hours every week doing homework, reading the text, etc. Are you really spending this much time on it? Too many kids approach science and math classes like they’re another class like history or government; with your years of experience understanding textbooks on subjects like these it’s easy to do well in these classes with a reading when the chapter is assigned and another quick review before the test. This approach does not translate into math and science classes; they take a lot of study and practice.</p>
<p>As for next steps in learning the material, get one of the “Problem-Solver” books for it. These are thick workbooks with hundreds of solved problems on each topic you’ll cover in calculus. After reading your textbook you open to the right chapter and then try to solve problems with the solution covered. If you get one wrong the book has the complete steps to get to the answer; read it over until you understand it, then cover the solution and repeat it until you get it right. You do this for about 9 hours each and every week.</p>
<p>Here are 4 links with more info about how to succeed in math/science classes
[Why</a> Students Think They Understand—When They Don’t](<a href=“http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/winter0304/willingham.cfm]Why”>Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Why Students Think They Understand—When They Don't) </p>
<p>[Practice</a> Makes Perfect—but Only If You Practice Beyond the Point of Perfection](<a href=“http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/spring2004/willingham.cfm]Practice”>Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Practice Makes Perfect—But Only If You Practice beyond the Point of Perfection)</p>
<p>[How</a> to Ace Calculus: The Art of Doing Well in Technical Courses](<a href=“http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/14/how-to-ace-calculus-the-art-of-doing-well-in-technical-courses/]How”>How to Ace Calculus: The Art of Doing Well in Technical Courses - Cal Newport)</p>
<p>[On</a> Becoming a Math Whiz: My Advice to a New MIT Student](<a href=“http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/04/28/on-becoming-a-math-whiz-my-advice-to-a-new-mit-student/]On”>On Becoming a Math Whiz: My Advice to a New MIT Student - Cal Newport)</p>