<p>Math isn’t my strong suit at all and I have alternative math courses I can take.</p>
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<li><p>It can’t really be necessary to get in, because there are at least a couple of math courses you could place into (and one statistics course) that not only don’t require any knowledge of calculus going in, but don’t expect to teach you any calculus. Lots and lots of people place into and take the lowest-level calculus course offered, which also presumes no prior knowledge of calculus, and even more people take the next level up, which would also be appropriate for someone with strong precalculus but no prior calculus study. All in all, judging from the registration statistics, somewhere between 40 and 400 students enter every year with no calculus or manifestly inadequate calculus.</p></li>
<li><p>But if you really want to avoid calculus forever, the University of Chicago is a poor place to do that. While it’s even possible to satisfy the Core math requirement without ever taking calculus, I’m not certain your advisor is allowed to volunteer that information. They really push calculus. They push fairly rigorous mathematical approaches to most social science topics, too. You can go elsewhere and have to take a lot less math.</p></li>
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