Hi, I know that this is a question that’s come up many times (the Google results were astounding, honestly), but my anxieties about this issue has been plaguing me for the past few weeks and my situation is a little more unique than most, so I’d really appreciate some insightful advice please!
I’m a senior, mainly straight A, some Bs student, and it’s been this year that I’ve maintained straight As up until now. My new school (I’ve moved from two other schools in the past) operates with four terms a school year, four classes a day, and so for the third and fourth term starting January I decided to take AP US Government, AP Calculus AB, and AP Chemistry, thinking that since I already took chemistry and passed the course with an A in my sophomore year, I’d do fine in AP Chemistry too.
But wow, AP Chemistry is an entirely different beast than regular chemistry. I’ve been struggling since the first day, no matter how much effort and attention I pay. The tests are usually filled with questions that we rarely discuss in class, and I keep on averaging 60% for my lab reports no matter how many details I put into it. The fact that I have dyscalculia (math dyslexia, essentially) makes it even harder for me especially when it comes to lab calculations and stoichometry, and so my grade at the moment, right after the midterm today, is a D at 68.3%, having dropped from a 72%, and I can feel my anxiety spiking by the minute because the class average is around 84%.
AP Calculus is also consuming my time as well, and I find myself often having to stay up past midnight every day to finish both classes’ assignments – which is a lot from AP Chem especially. I keep hoping that maybe I’ll pull a miracle and raise my grade somehow but I feel like all it does is drop whenever it moves.
I want to drop out, but the biggest problem is that I’ve been accepted into an early acceptance medical program which will require me to take a plethora of science classes as an undergraduate, including general chem and organic chem etc., and I feel like if I don’t get AP Chemistry now (or at least endure until graduation) I won’t be able to get it in college, and I’ll need to maintain a specific GPA in my undergraduate science courses in order to secure my early acceptance.
My second problem is how bad this will look to college admissions. I haven’t been accepted anywhere yet, but my biggest dream is to attend Loyola Marymount in LA and I’m terrified of what they might think if they find out that I dropped AP Chem. But also, if I stay, I’m also scared at how a D or a C might look to LMU at the end of the year.
So is it worth dropping out now? Should I spare myself the nerves and stress and anxieties, or should I weather it so that I won’t be as clueless in college? I’m sorry this is so long – I’m more of an English and History person in all honesty – but any word of advice would be deeply appreciated! Thank you!