<p>Oh my God, one C! Hang up your hat right now! You will burn in community college hell forever!</p>
<p>Or not! That one C in physics won’t ruin your chances forever of getting into Brown or Columbia, particularly with your very strong transcript (many AP and honors classes with great grades in everything). Everyone has a weakness. Mine was chemistry. Yours is physics. Don’t let one C bring you down. You still have an excellent shot about both of those schools, even with ED admissions.</p>
<p>My main concern is that neither of them seems to be a clear #1 choice, and Early Decision is for students who have a clear #1 choice and have for several months or years. I don’t like the idea of students who are clearly torn between two schools that they love basically shutting themselves out of one or the other because they think they’ll get a slight nudge in admissions. Not to mention losing out on the opportunity to compare aid packages. You have a very strong record overall, and you are a strong candidate for RD, too. Of course, in the end, it is your decision.</p>
<p>Calculus was easier for me than other previous maths – I don’t know, calculus just clicked for me, even though I didn’t do terribly week in pre-cal. A lot of that had to do with my teacher – I had a pretty bad pre-calc teacher and a really, really good calculus teacher. Then again, a lot of people say that pre-calc is harder.</p>