How will a C in an Honors Precalculus class affect my chances to get into a reputable school?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello everyone! I’m a sophomore in high school. Today was our last day of school, so I’m currently in the summer between sophomore and junior year.

I’m writing because I’m quite concerned about my grades. I get A’s in most of my classes, but I struggle in math. I’ve been in advanced math classes since freshman year, and I’ve gotten B’s all semesters. However, this past semester (the one that just ended), I got a C in Honors Precalc.

I know this isn’t an excuse, but the teacher I had for Precalc was notoriously known as being one of the most difficult teachers at the school simply because her tests were painstakingly difficult and she did not teach very well.

I’m worried that this will significantly drag down my GPA and chances to get accepted into a solid school. I’m planning to apply to somewhat to highly selective colleges as a Journalism and Musical Theatre/Theatre Arts major, and I’m concerned that this will weaken my chances.

I know it can’t possibly be a positive thing, but I was hoping there could be a way that I could possibly salvage my grade. How should I proceed?

Here’s my transcript:

Freshman Year (First Semester)
Spanish 2 - A
English 1 Honors - A-
Honors Alg 2 Trig - B
Adv Drama - A+
Biology - A

Freshman Year (Second Semester)
Spanish 2 - A+
English 1 Honors - A-
Honors Alg 2 Trig - B-
Adv Drama - A
Biology - A+

Sophomore Year (First Semester)
Honors Chem - A
Honors Precalc - B-
Spanish 3 - A+
Honors English 2 - A-
AP Euro - A-
Actor’s Rep - A+

Sophomore Year (Second Semester)
Honors Chem - A-
Honors Precalc - C
AP Euro - A-
Honors English 2 - A-
Spanish 3 - A+
Actor’s Rep - A

I’m in CSF, and I’m highly involved in theatre as an extracurricular. I’m in International Thespian Society as an Honor Thespian (600+ hours of theatre), and I lettered in it. I do it both in and out of school, and I hope to pursue this as a career, alongside journalism.

I have experience in both acting (recently I was Gingy in our school’s production of Shrek the Musical) and technical theatre (ASM, Sound Designer). In addition, I’m on staff for our school’s theatre company as the Resident Stage Manager, previously as the Marketing Director. I’ve played piano for seven years. I was also Student of the Semester and Student of the Year for AP Euro.

Thank you!

2

Define “reputable.”

3

A school known for good academics, clubs, activities, etc.

4

If it foreshadows future problems in math, it may diminish your chances at some schools. I can’t think of any non-reputable schools.

5

Pretty much every school is “reputable”, you need to be far more specific than that. What do you intend to major in?

6

I want to major in Journalism and Musical Theatre/Theatre Arts, so nothing having to do with math. What are my chances of getting into a selective/highly selective college? My apologies, I should’ve clarified earlier.

7

Selective as in top 20 LAC?

If you keep all A’s and rigor in your other courses, you should be fine.

8

If you are aiming at a “top 100” school, then (i) this is a very sensible place to aim; and (ii) it shouldn’t be a problem at all.

If you are aiming at Harvard or Stanford, and you are not a URM, then it might be an issue. However, I don’t see any good reason for you to aim at Harvard or Stanford. Frankly, any university in the top 100 or even top 200 is a very good university.

I notice that you have done very well at Biology, very well at chemistry, and actually very well at everything except math. Math is a subject where what you learn today is very much related to what you learned last year and the year before. Math is also useful for quite a few other fields such as various sciences. You might want to try to keep up a bit more in math in case you decide to switch out of journalism or theatre arts into something else. As you might guess from the name calculus is in particular very dependent upon pre-calc, as well as on trigonometry.

By the way, to me the term “reputable” applies to almost all of the 3,000 or so universities and colleges in the US (as well as a similar percentage in other countries). The non-reputable schools that I can think of are in the single digit numbers.