I’m a freshman at UC Berkeley, currently taking Math 1A and it’s been pretty rough for me. I got an F on my first midterm and the highest that I can get on the class is a B, given that I get A’s in all the other midterm, final, assignments, and quizzes. I was wondering if I should P/NP this class, so it won’t affect my GPA and take 16A instead next semester in order to fulfill the semester of Calculus for the Medical school prerequisite.
Your opinion will be greatly appreciated.
Try harder to get at least a B or B- in your math 1A class. One B in it self is not going to preclude you from med schools. Moving forward, if you are weak in math, try to take as little as you can to meet the prereq as possible and try to gain more GPA from those classes you are strong.
One thing to be concerned, Physics, as a prereq, uses a lot of math/calc at UCB, so you might want to consider to take non calc based Physics, to the extent acceptable in med school.
I’d take it p/np and then take 16A next semester.
The odds of going from F to A in a cumulative subject like math, at a competitive university like Cal, is close to zero.
Also, remember most would be pre-meds never apply to med school: protect your GPA as a first responsibility to your future self 
Would the OP have to report Math 16A as a “repeat” of Math 1A on the medical school application?
Math 16A (calculus for business majors) is considered a subset of Math 1A (calculus), and UCB gives no credit for 16A after 1A.
Math 10A and 10B are the usual math courses recommended for pre-meds and biology majors, although 16A and 16B are usually considered acceptable for pre-meds (but the big biology majors require 10A and 10B).
http://guide.berkeley.edu/courses/math/
https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/PrepPrereq
UCB Physics 8A and 8B (physics for biology majors and pre-meds) requires some calculus (prerequisite Math 1A, 10A,or 16A).
@ucbalumnus it says that 16A credit will be dropped after I take 1A. 
However, it says on 16B that 1A will be dropped if I take that. Would you recommend taking that instead? And do you know how that would look on my transcript given that I P/NP 1A? I got a 4 on AP Calculus, I got average or more than average for the Math 1A quizzes. The midterm is the one that just threw me off even with a curve. I think I can study harder to get a better grade for 16B, if that will be the case.
1A will give no credit after 16B, but that does not mean that 1A credit will be dropped if you take 16B.
I cannot imagine any of the options you are looking at would look good to a medical school application reader, when compared against the desired case of taking your 4 on AP calculus, taking 1B, and earning an A or A+ in it, or taking the 10A and 10B sequence and earning A or A+ grades in them.
Please note a pass in any med school prerequisites will be viewed as C in that class
@ucbalumnus do you suggest just taking 10A or 1B next semester then after switching 1A to P/NP? ‘Cause I’ve heard that there really isn’t much difference between the courses when medical schools look at them.
@artloversplus But if I’m taking another semester of Calculus and get an A in that, would that count as my prerequisite instead of the Math 1A P/NP? I also plan to take Stats to satisfy the 2nd semester of Math.
there’s really no “good” solution, the least problematic is to avoid a bad grade - the odds of getting all A’s after an F in the midterms are remote. A Pass/C followed by an A in 16A will be better than taking the risk of tanking his/her GPA first semester freshman year (which would totally sink any shot at med school anyway but would also handicap OP for any other goal).
Med schools won’t know about the AP class BTW.
Depends on what UCB reports on the transcript after receiving AP credit. While general UC policy is not to give credit for both AP and a college course covering similar material (e.g. AP calculus AB and Math 1A or 16A), the OP needs to find out if the AP credit disappears from the UCB transcript or if it remains listed but with zero credit after taking Math 1A.
Note that page 32 of https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/33/f0/33f0bd3f-9721-43cb-82a2-99332bbda78e/2018_amcas_applicant_guide_web-tags.pdf says that “If you take a college-level course for which you already have been granted AP credit by the same institution, AMCAS considers the course a Repeat.”
All your BCMP classes will be accounted for in your GPA and sGpa. If you take a pass in ANY class it will be accounted for as a 2.0 there is no grade replacement, md or do schools.
You should either drop the class if you feel it’s failing or try to get at least a B- or better.
Not sure how accurate this statement is. In AMCAS (MD schools application), any Pass grade is NOT counted in cGPA calculation. Not sure how DO application though.
It’s a BCMP class
From the following AMCAS gpa conversion table a passing grade is accounted for 2.0 in gpa.
Which specific chart converts passed grades to 2.0? Most list passed grades as AMCAS P with no grade point value (and not-passed grades as AMCAS N with no grade point value).
Still, regardless of AMCAS grade point conversion, repeating AP calculus credit, then choosing P/NP grading, and then repeating the course with a less rigorous version (business calculus instead of regular calculus) may not look good in terms of academic strength if the application gets to the point of being read by a human admission reader.
^ keeping in mind how remote this probability is v. The likelihood of a bad first semester grade . '…
I don’t have any words of good advice for the OP. Not sure what else can be done except to just do really well the rest of the way and hope for the best.
However, this is a thread that others can take note of who attend Berkeley in the future…if you get a good qualifying score on your Calculus AP tests, much of the time you want to take the credit and don’t look back. To review, a 3+ on Calc AB or a 3 or 4 on Calc BC lets you skip out of Math 1A, and a 5 on your Calc BC allows you to skip out of both Math 1A and 1B. Both classes are more-or-less weeder classes.
The conversion chart has two major sections, Under and Graduate. In the Under section, 3rd chart has ABC/F type, a “P” will get 2.0 GPA. Do not confused with Graduate grade conversion. OP is an UG student.
That does not seem to be consistent with what is written on page 4 of https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/2d/5d/2d5d7c94-6b23-4edf-ab1b-d574221bf6e3/2019-amcas-applicant-guide.pdf :
Here is what I think the confusion is.
A. The criteria for " AMCAS Course Type listed below are not included in AMCAS GPA calculations"
is the “Course Type” first has to be pass/fail to begin with. If a course like “physical ed” and it is not a letter grade course, it will be counted as “Supplemental Hours” and it will not be accounted for GPA calculation.
B. If the course is a letter grade course, especially BCMP courses. The Grade conversion table will apply. In OP’s case, Math is a letter grade course, if he gets a “P”, 2.0 will be used for his GPA. In my previous posting, I pointed out the 3rd chart in UG GPA conversion has the “P” grade as 2.0, actually, both 3rd and 4th chart all have that grade references.