Hi,
I’m currently a sophomore in HS, and I’m doing pretty well in all of my classes except gym. There are my grades:
AP World History - A
Honors English - A
AP Calc BC - B
Spanish 4 - A
Band - A
AP Comp Sci A - A
AP Chemistry - B+
PE: D
So yeah, I have a D in gym, mostly because my gym course requires that I do extra workouts outside of school (30 minutes in the “cardio zone” with a fitness tracker, but in practice it takes a lot longer because I have to warm up and get to the cardio zone), and I just don’t have time for that with pretty much all AP/Honors classes. My goal school right now is MIT (hence all of the AP math/science classes), and I don’t think they would really care about a D in gym, but at the same time, it’s still a bad grade and it still brings down my GPA. I also have an option of dropping the course and doing it again next year, but that sort of just delays the problem. My grade will probably improve a little over the year since I will be getting more time thanks to the end of marching band, but I don’t want to wait too long. What should I do?
Oh, and by fitness tracker I mean a Fitbit with a heart rate tracker.
Surely you can work out to a video or walk briskly in your neighborhood for 30 minutes a day. MIT presumably wants motivated people. By the way, aerobic exercise can help you sleep better and improve your functioning throughout the day. You are not too busy for this.
Getting a D in an academic class is bad because it indicates that you won’t be able to handle college classes. On the other hand, gym is usually graded on participation, so getting a D is bad because it indicates that you won’t follow your teachers’ directions unless it suits you. If you can’t complete the work for all of your classes, you’re either taking too many classes or not managing your time well, and colleges will view that negatively.
Is gym even included in your GPA? It wasn’t in mine 40 plus years ago and it isn’t in my son’s this year. I got a D every term in gym and still graduated in the top 10% of my class.
The only problem is if you fail. My sister in law didn’t graduate and had to go back to HS the following fall to take THREE gym classes. The irony is that she became a professional dancer.
If you think about it from MITs perspective, they have applicants who are just as qualified, and probably more qualified, than you, who also got an A in gym, so why would they take you over them? Getting a bad grade in gym without an excuse like an injury or other health condition may make it look like you aren’t motivated to work hard and maintain a healthy balanced lifestyle, which would make you a less desirable person for MIT to have on their campus.
If you have a treadmill or something you could watch Khan Academy or Crash Course while getting those 30 minutes of exercise in, or you could watch educational videos while doing jumping jacks (bad example but you can think of something) in front of the TV or something. Find ways to multitask.
Multitask
That answer won’t sit well with any college. Change the course name in your example to Spanish. I got a D in Spanish because I don’t have time for that.