<p>Okay so I currently have a 54% in AP Chemistry and a 62.95% in Pre-Calculus. Finals are next week and to bring my grade up to a C for Pre-Calc I would need a 95% on the final and for Chem I would need an 84% to receive a D at least. I am really scared and I'm a sophomore in high school and I have never gotten below a B on my transcript. I'm a mostly A/B student. Could I retake the first semester of both courses over summer? P.S. I'm dropping AP Chemistry A and going into Chemistry B. However, the teacher that I have is terrible and half of AP Chem is forced to drop so I'm not alone. I really want to make it into UC Berkeley and I hope to get into Duke or Harvard for their Law program. Again I don't want colleges to get the wrong idea of me with those two grades but it is my fault for taking AP Euro along with AP Chem. </p>
<p>Why are you dropping AP Chem A? AP B is just going to be harder</p>
<p>Don’t blame your grades on your teacher. First and foremost, AP classes are meant to be taught like college classes, and no one will be holding your hand and guiding you through anything in college. So you are going to have to learn to take the initiative sometimes and learn the material on your own. Your school may be different from mine, but typically if you retake the class they don’t average it out percentwise. So say you get a 96% when you retake it won’t be 96+54/2 = 75. It would be the GPA values averaged out. </p>
<p>Grad schools won’t even care about your HS grades when you apply. They will,however, care about your undergraduate GPA and your LSAT scores. And don’t let one or two bad grades get you down, you still have two more years of HS to show colleges who you truly are. Your grades don’t define you. </p>
<p>a) From a post in April: "I am ranked 244/588 GPA unweighted (3.54) and 193/588 GPA weighted (3.85). "
b) A post in July said you were likely hitting a C+ in Geometry during a summer class.</p>
<p>Now you’re struggling mightily with AP Chem and PreCalc. To the point of crushing your GPA even further. </p>
<p>Your first order of business is to graduate HS in some semblance of order – which doesn’t look very likely unless you (and likely your parents in concert with you) develop some real study habits and evaluate what your true academic abilities and strengths and weaknesses are. And your teacher being terrible doesn’t fly with anyone.</p>
<p>The idea of UCB or Duke or Harvard Law (which are NOT undergraduate programs, btw) should be the farthest thing from your mind. These are pipe dreams and you’ve not demonstrated academic attributes of students who are viable applicants to that level of selective college. None whatsoever. The reality of your sophomore GPA dipping below 3.0, failing one or two courses – should be screaming at you right now. Your priorities are totally screwy and have no link to reality. I’m being very blunt with you b/c those fantasy goals make you look disassociated with reality. Please meet with your Chem teacher. Please meet with your PreCalc teacher. They will help you if you are willing to help yourself. </p>
<p>I thought when you retake a class the new grade replaces the original but it still shows up on the transcript.</p>
<p>And this can be easily answered by your guidance counselor.</p>
<p>@T26E4 well if I do okay junior year then I should be fine.</p>
<p>There’s still a semester of sophomore year left. Start doing better thank OK now. </p>
<p>@T26E4 yes I have talked to them about it but they didn’t really give me much to think about. </p>
<p>fine is all relative. Junior year is a long way off and, to me at least, you have some major academic hurdles to surmount before then. What’s going to change your C and D ways? Tell your Chem and Pre-Calc teachers and Guid counselor. Get back on track – right now your train is in the ditch. At this very moment, there is NOTHING more important than getting back to a positive trajectory with your grades and classes.</p>
<p>Get it back rolling fwd, knock out As and Bs again. Settle into a solid junior year – see where you find yourself then. Good luck to you. I hope you find that teacher who can give you some solid guidance that you’re willing to take.</p>
<p>@T26E4 at your other post are you basically saying I have no chance of getting into those two schools even if I get back on track from here on out? Or do you mean not to focus on college selections considering I’m only a sophomore? </p>
<p>1) Yes</p>
<p>2) focus on not failing and getting Cs and Ds importance > musing about colleges.</p>
<p>it’s like you’re 5’3" with a dream to play on the NBA. But you walk up to the hospital ER with a gushing arterial bleeding. Should the nurse chat with you about the next basketball camp? Or apply a tourniquet?</p>
<p>@T26E4 hm…so there’s nothing I can do at least for UC Berkeley? I have clubs and sports all that stuff going for me. </p>
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Yes, you could get your grades up. Until that happens, speculation is just wasted energy.</p>
<p>T26E4 is correct - you should focus on improving your GPA; the top schools like UC Berkeley require unweighted GPAs of 3.95+ or weighted 4.5+. The top schools like that you have a difficult work load, but if you cannot handle the workload to begin with, there is a fundamental problem.</p>
<p>@VivaCardinals I feel like sophomore year has slightly harder ap classes than junior year bc chem and euro are a lot harder than APUSH and physics. Bc I know for sure I’m taking ap calc and apush but iffy on ap Lang ap physics. </p>
<p>That is subjective. Most students do not take AP chemistry as a sophomore, nor do they take AP Euro as a sophomore. Classes such as Honors Biology, Honors Physics, or both are good for sophomore year. You should slow down with the AP classes - it is better to get straight As with a lighter load as opposed to getting Cs with a heavier load. Take a lighter load, and take some college classes during junior year second semester/summer/senior year first semester.</p>
<p>@VivaCardinals does it make a difference that I’m half Hispanic?</p>
<p>There really is no appropriate answer to that question. The issue is that if you cannot handle the workload and difficulty of classes such as AP Chem and Pre-Calculus, managing the workload in college will be a challenge</p>
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<p>WHY on earth are you even considering AP calc when you’re failing PRE-CALC? </p>
<p>Listen to T26E4.</p>