<p>My uncle is a doctor and he graduated from Harvard Med school and I aspire to do the same. I love health and I'm good at science and math, the reason I'm so behind is because during my 7th grade I had lots of personal and family issues and stress and my grades slipped but it was never because I didn't understand it or anything like that, I was always advanced and put in the advanced math courses before but had suddenly been placed into pre algebra in 8th. At this rate, I'll be ending 12th grade with Pre-Calc instead of my hope of finishing with AP calculus that I genuinely would like to do, to challenge myself, and my school has no real motive to place me higher at all. During high school, should I self teach or take it at a community college and take the AP exam? What options do I have? I know for doctors, math is crucial and I really need this. I can't change schools btw because of some financial issues with my family so I'm kinda stuck in this school. I will be starting freshman year in a couple of months </p>
<p>I’m also being placed in a slow paced Science class and no honors for 9th. Ugh… Help! </p>
<p>No, but you could always take a summer course to advance.</p>
<p>Could I take a summer course at another school? My school “conveniently” doesn’t have one</p>
<p>Yeah. I think you can just take courses at a local community college or something.</p>
<p>You could also double AlgII and Precal or AlgII and Geometry or something along the lines of that.
If its too late for that, i know my friend is skipping precal for AP Calc AB (well not skipping, he’s taking a summer course).</p>
<p>Though if ultimately if you can’t reach AP Calc by 12th, its not going to be an automatic no from Harvard, but it’ll be a steeper uphill battle to get in than those who were able to take AP Calc. Maybe you could take some summer internship or volunteering at a hospital or something to show that you’re serious about Med School?</p>
<p>It sounds like you are going into 9th grade this year. Is that right? If so, I would suggest that you take the lower level math class sooner than later to “catch up”. For example, take Algebra over the summer and start 9th grade with Geometry, or take Geometry next summer and start 10th grade with Algebra 2. You can find a community college that offers these classes in your area or look for online courses that your school will accept and move you up accordingly. </p>
<p>I recommend taking Geometry and Algebra 2 at the same time 
That’s the best place to double up, since neither requires knowledge learned from the other. At most schools, you take Geometry first, but at others, you take Algebra 2 first. It doesn’t matter what order you take them in, so taking them at the same time wouldn’t be much different Just make sure you can handle the workload!</p>
<p>I’d look into skipping precalc. At my school, S1 precalc is just an unnecessary algebra II review and S2 is trig. Most of the trig I’d learned in Algebra II, though I’m not sure how typical that is. The only new thing I got out of precalc that is relevant in calc and beyond was trig identities.</p>
<p>Alternatively as others have suggested, double up geometry with one of the algebra courses or take a summer course.</p>