<p>Sorry, I double checked. It was Honors Pre-Calc not AP Calc. My mistake. He has a twin sister and I get their classes mixed up. He has taken other AP classes though and has done fine.</p>
<p>Did he retake the course he failed?</p>
<p>Every school is going to be different in terms of what the options are. Often synching a high school schedule with a college one can be problematic. I don’t want to overwhelm you with information that may or may not be relevant but I think you have some good options available to your son. I’m with mominva; you don’t want to have that Calc course in the spring. Trust me. I’ve been there.</p>
<p>‘He already has it scheduled for the spring at the HS but I’m gonna check and see if it can be taken at the CC at night.’</p>
<p>My concern with this approach is that your son will not demonstrate mastery prior to schools making admission decisions. Even if the HS sends a blanket ‘We had an unqualified dingbat in that classroom’ letter, a fall course will show your son’s (presumed) success.</p>
<p>OP-that does make a difference and not for the better. He still needs to take Precalc in cc. He will have to take a placement test for the cc before he can enroll for Precalc. Scholarships will be very difficult to come by with this turn of events.</p>
<p>The moral of the story: Parents have to be informed of all the options available to their students. Parents must take a very proactive stance when things go south. So sorry, you believed that the GCs give good advice. GCs will only offer what is district policy.</p>
<p>High School honors Pre-Calc is a HUGE difference from AP Calc. You cannot just go to CC and take college precalc instead. If he failed high school precalc, his basic algebra probably needs work, and he would need first to take college algebra then college precalc if he went the CC route. That is not going to happen in time. </p>
<p>The GC was misdirected in her suggestions. To wait to take HS Precalc the final semester of senior year after failing it will do him no good getting into competitive colleges. He should have taken an online HS honors precalc class over the summer. There are MANY HS honors Precalc classes available. If had had done this over the summer, he could have rescued himself somewhat by taking college algebra in the fall, in plenty of time for regular decision decisions. That would have shown colleges he has what it takes to go to the next level in math at their institution. Or by taking AP Calc. </p>
<p>To have any chance at all getting in to decent colleges, he needs to repeat HS honors Precalc NOW. I am sure that there are folks who can direct you to great online programs. We have experience with FLVS (Florida Virtual School) for honors classes. You CAN take them if you are not a Florida Resident, you just pay for the classes. Waiting until spring to take this class over will mean he will not be likely to start at any of the colleges you listed until SPRING 2011 at the earliest. His spring 2010 grades will not be back until May or June, long after decisions are made for FALL 2010. He will not be deferred with this F on his resume and no retake, he will be getting a flat out nonacceptance. This was not AP Calc, but HS Pre-calc. I think acceptance for Spring 2011 is even shakey. </p>
<p>The colleges you listed are now super reaches. Time to look seriously at matches and safeties. And this is assuming he can make up the course this fall online. </p>
<p>I am afraid scholarships will be difficult at this point. An F in Precalc is hard to overlook. With a good math score on the ACT or SAT, it means he just didn’t put the time into it that it needed. Colleges are wary of students with good scores but grades that don’t measure up. And not taking the course over immediately over summer online will not give colleges a chance to see what he can do.</p>
<p>He may really be better off going to CC or to a regional state U and excelling, getting a 4.0, then transferring.</p>
<p>Is it possible for him to take Precalc at another high school in your district? One that offers Precalc as a Fall class? Again you will need to get special permission from the hs and then the district.</p>
<p>Is it at all possible that you can request the grade be dropped off the transcript? Try talking to the teacher primarily in conjunction with the counselor, as I’ve had experience with this and I’m sure it can be helped.</p>
<p>Well, I will probably get in trouble for saying this, but if I really believed that the teacher was the problem and that a great number of otherwise strong students had failed this class, I think I would organize the parents and go see the principal. A principal might be able to do something that would result in a grade change if so inclined – for example allow the students to have their AP score influence the grade. Or the principal might want to look at the grading policies compared to the other calculus teacher – would this grade have been different in another class? But you would need a really, really strong case with across-the-board evidence. Even then, I think the principal would be well within his/her rights to point out that grades went home at five week intervals (or whatever they were) and that parents should have come in before, not after, final grades. If for no other reason, than the sake of the kids who will have this teacher next year, I would address what seems to be a major problem at that school.</p>
<p>^^^The OP has clarified this was NOT AP calc, this was an honors precalc class. There are no AP calc scores to compare to. And if this student really has issues, getting the school to drop the grade from the transcript is not going to do this child any favors. </p>
<p>What was the math ACT score? </p>
<p>Problem is, many kids glide through HS math until about precalc, then weaknesses arise that need to be further evaluated and corrected now, not after a student flunks a college math class later.</p>
<p>Did the student not get a C+ first semester? That would have rung many bells for me that some kind of support was required for the student to improve.
An F is bad; a C+ is not good either for the kind of schools he wants (ND, etc…)
It also sounds like he needs to beef up his algebra. If he wants to go into pre-med, he will need a strong algebra background.</p>
<p>An F will most likely hinder his chances, but then again I had an embarrassingly low GPA my junior year as well. I didn’t receive any F’s, however it was a dreadful second semester. Needless to say, I got right back on my feet for senior year so I could redeem myself and took long hours perfecting an essay explaining the reasons behind the poor grades I’d earned. I was accepted to all the schools I applied to, except one (UC Berkeley), and the 4 others were all top 50 schools. I was an entirely different case however, but hopefully this will give you and your son some hope as the admissions process approaches. Good luck.</p>
<p>27 Math, 34 Science, 32 reading, 29 Engish for ACT scores.</p>
<p>Did he have integrated math? If so, he most likely needs a really good intermediate algebra class. Even some of the traditional algebra classes are just too watered down these days. I subbed in both integrated & traditional math courses at the high school level. My son’s private school honors 8th grade algebra was more difficult than the algebra 2 at the local high school. I won’t even go into the lack of algebra skills gained in the integrated program. I would encourage you to get him into a community college algebra class.</p>
<p>If one of my kids got a C+ in Pre-Calc in the first semester and an F second semester, he’d be taking the entire course again. The C+ was a huge red flag for the OP’s S to take care of business and/or get help, and he didn’t. GC’s advice wasn’t good either. </p>
<p>Retaking the entire class would also demonstrate that the the kid knows he bleeped up, needs to remediate and get himself better prepared for college, in whatever he chooses to study. </p>
<p>One of my kids struggled mightily with Alg II w/Functions – didn’t have a great Alg I class. He got extra problems, he got up the guts to talk to the teacher, I got him a different textbook, made practice tests and he pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Was a very valuable lesson for him.</p>
<p>While I would be very wary of adding another academic fall class if it could cause other grades to suffer, here are some options if you feel there is enough free time to get the class finished before applying. I believe all are self-paced and online, so you work on it when you can (does require real self-motivation, however):</p>
<p>k12.com<br>
- MTH403: Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry
[K12:</a> High School Course List](<a href=“http://k12.com/courses/high-school-courses/high-school-course-list/]K12:”>http://k12.com/courses/high-school-courses/high-school-course-list/)</p>
<p>apexlearning.com
- core precalc
[Apex</a> Learning | Catalog | Core Courses | Math | Math | Precalculus](<a href=“Error 404 | Edmentum”>Error 404 | Edmentum)
- or honors pre-calc
[Apex</a> Learning | Catalog | Honors Courses | Math | Math | Precalculus](<a href=“Error 404 | Edmentum”>Error 404 | Edmentum)</p>
<p>indiana university high school
- he could take a class at Indiana U Bloomington online (assuming the teacher was the problem, and not a weakness in math) as a dual-credit course
[Indiana</a> University High School - List of Dual-Credit Courses](<a href=“http://iuhighschool.iu.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=1382]Indiana”>http://iuhighschool.iu.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=1382)</p>
<p>These are all great suggestions from spideygirl. Your son can pull out of this hole, but he will have to work hard to do so. I would really encourage your son to look for safety schools at this stage. He has some ground to make up but it is not impossible for him to do so. Good luck!</p>
<p>Big picture - this is not the end of the world. The 31 ACT is huge. </p>
<p>From what I can gather, your S is an automatic admit for both University of Iowa and University of Kansas. That means that given his numbers as you’ve reported them, he gets in - by a pretty wide margin I might add. He can still be premed, study science, etc, at a flagship state school. </p>
<p>He may still have a shot a Michigan State. Wisconsin, Illinois and Notre Dame seem less likely to overlook the F, but it’s worth a shot if he really wants to go there. </p>
<p>It would be better to take precalculus sooner than later, but if it can’t be done, I think it’s better to do well in what he is taking. I don’t think that making him miserable by overloading him would be productive. Maybe the best thing would be to get him a tutor to review the material from the first semester so that he has a good foundation when he repeats the class. I agree that taking it in the spring wouldn’t help in the admissions equation, but the goal is to learn the material well so that he can move on. When he does do precalculus, he can take the CLEP exam for placement or credit.</p>
<p>Also, this thread should be moved to the Parent Forum. I think there would be more responses.</p>
<p>Definitely agree that taking the entire course is warranted, this time with close monitoring and tutoring help. Sometimes, it takes two times through a course to finally get it.</p>