<p>I have been a mostly A/B student with C's in math with a 3.5 GPA, but I'm worried that I will end up getting a D in AP Calculus BC this semester (or even year). Yes, I know getting a D does NOT look good on my transcript, but at my school, we aren't exactly allowed to withdraw classes once we've decided to taken it. There is also no honors or regular Calculus at our school, and we HAVE to take a math class all four years of our high school lives, so it was either Calculus AP or AP Stats (which I heard wasn't any easier, almost the whole class in there is failing). I thought I could make it in Calculus BC, but just when I decided it might be better for me to switch into AB, my counselor told me I could not switch into AB at all. </p>
<p>I got into Washington State University and some other schools recently, and I am worried this might severely affect my chances of admission into other colleges I am awaiting admission decisions from, even though I have never been good at math most of my life. What should I do?</p>
<p>Reading the post, it looks like you took Calc BC before AB? I didn’t think that was possible… </p>
<p>For Washington state, as long as you’re already admitted and such, 1 D shouldn’t make that big of a problem. You should clarify which math path you took though</p>
<p>I actually jumped from PreCalculus to Calculus BC because I wanted a stronger math foundation and I wanted to, in a sense, prepare myself for college calculus, because in college I can’t take a whole year to master a semester’s worth of stuff, hence jumping to BC. Probably wans’t a good choice, now that I think about it, but not much I could do.</p>
<p>If you get a D (assuming its for the semester about to end) then you need to send an email to all the schools where you’ve applied notifying them of this. Many colleges require you to notify them if your schedule changes or you get any grade lower than a C. And by notifying them promptly you do a few things that work in your favor. You show maturity, and you let them know in time to work out some alternative should this be important to your admission such as a summer class at a CC. One thing I can guarantee you: there will be far fewer options left if you freeze and do nothing, waiting until they find out the middle of this summer when they get your final HS transcripts.</p>
<p>Getting a grade less than a C can be a big deal at many colleges, at others they might let you slide. For the UC system your admission can be revoked. And assuming you were admitted under Washington’s assured admission program, they say
<p>Yeah. I can’t believe your school let you do that. Calc BC is basically Calc AB in 3 dimensions, you need Calc AB to function in BC. Interesting. I concur with the person above me.</p>
<p>Yes, it is possible to take calc BC instead of AB, depending on the school. There are several ways a school can handle it. Two years of calculus Ab then BC. or BC can be a year long course that starts at the beginning. Then it is paced more like a college level course. Both my kids took BC - a one year course, and not AB. </p>
<p>But it is a bad idea if you are not strong in math. You got Cs in math? You should not be taking Calc at all.</p>
<p>Yeah our school let us do that. I knew someone last year who did that and I even know a few people who took Calc BC in their junior year (without even going to Calc AB).</p>
<p>I really wish I didn’t have to take Calculus my senior year, but our school forces us to have a nearly-full schedule all 4 years of high school, so I’m not allowed to drop math or science; they want us to have almost 4 years of everything.
For math, it was pretty much either AP Calc or AP Stats (and everyone I know in Stats class is failing hard). My math teacher last year recommended Calc since it had “more real life applications.”</p>
<p>while off point, those of you who are confused about AP Calc…</p>
<p>many, many high schools only offer BC (or AB) but not both. Calc BC is nothing but AB + C. In other words, BC moves faster and covers the AB material in about half (or two-thirds) the time. So yeah, taking BC without AB is quite normal.</p>
<p>OP: your math teacher is strange. AP Stats has more real world application than does Calc.</p>