Grades

<p>Don't take this the wrong way before I say anything, but do our grades actually matter after we send in our first semester of senior year and are already accepted? I'm not saying I want to completely slack off, I just thought it would be nice if i knew I didnt have to stress everytime I had a BC Calc test.</p>

<p>Although I have no direct knowledge, I suspect that a minor drop in grades would not result in an appointment being withdrawn. That being said a good foundation in Calc BC will only be to your advantage next year. :)</p>

<p>What's BC Calc? Our school has a Pre-Calculus; is it the same thing?</p>

<p>AB and BC calc are AP courses, BC is the higher of the two.</p>

<p>No, they aren't the same. Usually Calc AB will take you to Calc 2 and BC will take you to college equivalent of Calc 3.</p>

<p>Thanks clearing that up. Due to the small size of our school, we don't have any AP courses. However, I am currently taking Calculus and Analytic Geometry 2 at the local Ohio State branch, and we've been dealing primarily with integral calculus. I'm not sure if there are any current cadets on this post, but does anyone know what level of math we are expected to be at for plebe year?</p>

<p>AP courses actually aren't that helpful. They won't automatically get you out of anything without having to take an additional test (except for History, I think). I got an 800 verbal SAT (on the old one), and a 5 on my AP Lit, and I'm still stuck in basic English. AP Courses that might be useful to actually take the tests: Any language, chemistry, and history. I don't really think anything else will help you that much. I had a 5 in AP Psych and they won't let you validate. You're just put in the advanced class. I WOULD suggest validating History, though. I'm in two different Yuk classes, and History takes up a LOT of time.</p>

<p>When you're a Plebe, the basic courses are MA103 and MA104 (you can be higher and lower than that, I think). MA103 is Discrete Dynamical Systems (I STILL don't know what that is, but I got an A in the class), and MA104 is basically like a higher level calculus class with a LOT of Mathematica. It doesn't really matter if you're good at Calculus, because you probably WON'T be good at Mathematica. I hate that frickin' program.</p>

<p>marines4me or any current WP cadet, a few questions:</p>

<p>During high school I learned that there are two subjects I really don't like: Chemistry and History - I took both of these as APs and got 4s. Will validating these courses be a good idea (especially if I wasn't great at chemistry)? Will validating them just move me into more advanced chemistry and history courses that I will struggle with? Or will validating them allow me to take different classes that I am more interested in - like higher math/physics courses?</p>

<p>Validating Courses is a great idea. During Beast all cadets will have an opportunity to validate the basic plebe courses. I validated 2 semesters of History, 2 of chemistry and 1 semester of math. It was a great idea, and I never regretted it for a second. If you hate chemistry definitely validate it, the test isn't that hard. Same goes with history, that is considered one of the hardest plebe course. As I recall the history validation had 2 factors, 1 was your AP/IB score and the other was an interview with a history teacher. Hope that helps.</p>

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