<p>arwen – your post is beautiful to look at, among other things. 
A grade that would raise eyebrows is typically in the B range. It’s rare that an A- in a subject really hurts someone. It certainly conveys competence, which is all we’re looking for. When someone comes in with no grade at all in calculus to date, we don’t have even an approximate idea of what they’d be capable of (since it’s not so terribly uncommon to see a high precalc grade but a bad calculus grade.)</p>