Since this class, all of my grades have been A’s with generally a couple B’s each year. However, I received a C for AP Calc AB and I know that this is going to kill my GPA and chances of being admitted to a fairly good school. Are there any other options I can take, or am I done for? I’ve already turned in all of my college applications.
P.S. I am Asian American with a 1440 SAT and 4.65/5 (soon to be dropped) GPA.
no. elite schools care about much more than just grades, and a strong performance in all of your other classes will not hurt your chances. If you improve in your math class this year, that will be very attractive to colleges.
I’m already a senior, so midyear reports are to be sent to the colleges I applied to. Thus, they won’t be able to see if I improved in AP calc (which I am currently in) until I get rejected. Would community college and then transfer be a better choice?
I think you are catastrophizing . Schools are used to seeing some drop senior year and they know it is only a midyear grade. So no a last minute switch to community college isn’t in order here. If your other grades are good you’ll be ok.
Hopefully you have match and likely schools outside the top 20?
I do! But I would really like to be accepted into at least one of my reach schools; my safety schools are literally just “safeties” and I would prefer not to attend them.
If you want a stem major, it’s not a strong grade. And if your scores are a tad low.
“Reach” means tough to get into, a long shot, even for seemingly perfect kids.
It’s tough to get into a top 20 school even if you have straight As, especially for Asian Americans. Try to focus on your “target” schools.
There are so so so many great schools out there that are not in the top 20. Please look into those in the top 50, the top 100 – there is a lot to genuinely love about a lot of schools. I understand the desire to attend a top 20, but I truly think you would end up really happy at a school that’s in the top 100 or even top 150 (but not necessarily in the top 20) as well. There’s a lot to like out there.
So would every single applicant- but there is a reason for the word “reach”. And a “safety” that you don’t want to go to is not a safety. Where are your matches? There are some very good schools with Feb 1 application deadlines: put your energy into getting some more applications in- stat.
Not to be harsh, but perhaps you are a C+ Calc student. Perhaps you are not a top 20 colleges student. But that is the top 1% of colleges. There are many many fine colleges that are for you.
It really depends on whether or not you want to study math. If you don’t, then it won’t really matter much.