I’m thinking about becoming going into pre-med and eventually becoming a doctor after graduating from High School. I’m currently picking courses for Sophmore and Junior year and I’m not sure if I should stay in honors math. I’m in honors and AP classes for all other core subjects and I have a B, B- in Honors Geometry currently. I definitely struggle in the class but I’m not sure if dropping down to regular classes will hurt my chances at top colleges.
Here are my classes
Freshman Year:
Honors English 9- A
Honors Geometry- B
AP HUG- B+
Exploratory Art- A
French 1- A
PE- A
Contemporary Computing- A
Sophomore Year Classes
Honors American lit
APUSH
AP econ micro
Honors Chem
Art- Metals
Drawing
PE
Honors Algebra 2/trig OR Algebra 2
Should I stay in honors or should I switch down and if I do switch down will it look bad
Thx
From what I’ve heard (senior in hs currently), you should stay in the honors class. It will show you didn’t give up just to get an A. Do whatever you can to earn a good grade in the class whether it’s getting help from the teacher or a friend/classmate. Plus won’t the weighting from the honors class help the grade?
I agree, stay in honors. Additionally, Alg 2 and Geometry are totally different. Your success in honors geometry will most likely not be very indicative of your success in Alg 2. If you found Alg 1 easy, it is just a continuation.
Algebra 2 is more like Algebra 1 than Geometry. If you found Algebra 1 to be easy, then stay in Honors. Don’t stay there to impress colleges though. What’s most important is that you get a good foundation in math and that you understand the concepts well. Math builds on itself, so if you are struggling now, it will just lead to more struggling later.
I also want to comment on something else you wrote that you did not ask about. You said you want to be premed and then go to med school. You then asked about top colleges. You need to know that you do not need to go to a top college to go to med school. Med schools don’t care where you go to college. They only care about college grades, MCAT scores, and medical related ECs that you do in college. For now the best thing you can do is to take the most challenging courses you can reasonably handle and do well in them.
So honestly you are planning on a tough curriculum with or without honors math. If you can still end up in Calculus by your senior year, I wouldn’t stress about this too much. Yes, honors classes look good, but if you are concerned of your grade dropping to a C next year, I would recommend that you drop a level. Just make sure to continue your current level of rigor and take up some EC’s as you progress. Also, high school is supposed to be a time for you to have fun, please remember that. Yes, work hard, but remember that everyone needs some kind of relaxation/free time. Building social networks and maintaining mental health is just as important as studying for your next exam (btw this is not an excuse not to study so that you can hang out with friends or play sports😄)! Keep up the good work- everything will work out!
Stay in honors math. Some people are great at Algebra, and not great at Geometry. I loved Algebra - seemed like solving math puzzles - but I hated Geometry. I always felt like it was just circular reasoning to prove things that were obvious. I had to memorize the proofs, they just never came easily to me.
Once you drop down to regular math, it can be difficult to get back on the honors track and do AP Calc before college.
BTW, me 29034 is correct. You can get into med school from average colleges, as long as you have excellent grades, an excellent MCAT score, and have done some extracurricular activity that shows that you’re serious about medicine. But you shouldn’t take that to mean that you can plan for mediocrity in high school, if you’re capable of more. This is the time to challenge yourself.