I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to explain C’s in math. Not just 1 year but 9th, 10th & 11th. There’s no particular excuse, it’s just my S worst subject and he did his best, but it is lower than all his other grades. Thanks.
You don’t, you just apply to a range of schools that fit the grades as they are.
I should’ve mentioned its one of the supplemental questions-explain any grade below a B. These are his only grades below a B. Thx.
I’d go with the truth. Have your son really think about why math is difficult for him as compared to other subjects. And if there is anything he thinks he can do to improve going forward he can mention that in the answer as well.
Lets put aside admissions for a minute. Math and sometimes science are like canaries in the coalmine for many HS kids, reflecting poor study habits. In most subjects a kid can study the nite before the exam and remember enough to recognize right answers on multiple-choice tests or put them down on short answer. Their verbal skills let them sidestep lack of deep knowledge when writing essays on tests.
Math is different. Nobody learns math by reading the chapter the night before the test. You can answer the homework with the book open, flipping back to similar problems and then applying it to the homework problem, but this isn’t really learning. Learning math takes practice (and time!) solving problems and forcing oneself to recall how to do them instead of flipping back in the book; in fact it is this work at recall (even if unsuccessful) that cements the concepts although of course you need to keep reading the chapter and doing problems until they are answered. I suspect study skills and not any intrinsic reason
The worry, then, is that if your son has weak study skills this will affect him even if he religiously avoids math-based classes in college since the expectations are going to step up in just about every subject. Cramming the night before the test isn’t going to work as well as it did in HS.
I don’t know how selective this college is, hopefully these grades won’t matter. A good answer to this question would be that the kid/parents realized in 9th grade that something wasn’t right and perhaps with the guidance of the teacher worked on improving his study skills, improved grades in subsequent years showing it was working. But your son got these grades year after year.
There is a great book about the science of learning called “Make it Stick” that has plenty of advice for HS and college kids. I suggest you get it this summer and have your son apply it in the fall. It would help his case if he could write to his admission officer in January when 1st semester grades are out and tell them he was able to raise his math grade.
I agree with @mikemac. The grades aren’t what concerns me. What concerns me is that math is the basis for so much going forward. I think that it is important to understand what the cause is of his consistent C’s in math. I understand that some people are just not born to be good in math. However, some degree of logical and abstract thinking is useful in a lot of places.
To what degree this is a concern might depend upon what he intends to study in university.