Straight A's and an F

Chance Me / Match Me
1

I have mostly straight A’s (and a few B’s). I’m a good student and always taking the hardest classes I possibly can. I survived classes like APUSH and AP Lang which are considered GPA killers at my school. However, there is one class that for some reason I can’t grasp. Algebra 2. The teacher for this course is notorious for being a hard teacher and making this a hard class, but it is not much harder than any of my other classes for this year. Yet I’m still going to fail the class for this year. I’m planning to retake the class online so I can keep my schedule next year how I would like it. I’m still teetering over whether I should take Stat or Pre-calc next year. I know this F is going to dramatically affect my gpa but is it going to affect my admission chances? I am really worried. I have previously posted on this site about my admission chances at several colleges but here are my stats again:

SAT - 1520
GPA - probably around a 3.3
I took two ap tests this year and will take 4 next year

I take an elective in my school known as Medical Assisting where we learn how to be a medical assistant and we have clinic twice a week and at the end of our second year of the course we can take a test to become certified.

Extracurriculars and Activities:
Soccer Team (Varsity, County Champs, Captain, won multiple awards) My town is well known for our soccer team we consistently make it to states, we have scouts at almost every game.
Rowing (Varsity, medaled multiple times)
SGA Member
NHS Member (very involved)
Latin NHS
Participated in a study/research program with a local University about substance abuse.
Participated in a research program about the effect of global warming on aquatic communities at the same University.
Part of a Teen ran council (4H) for two counties in my state ( News Reporter and Treasuer)
Accepted into CWF

Volunteering: Most of my community service revolves around 4H and I plan on writing one of the college’s essays about this program because I’ve been doing it for 4+ years now and it means a lot to me.
400+ Hours of community service 4H ( Teaching science to underprivileged children, Cleaning up local parks and schools, building gardens for students, etc.)
100+ Hours Coaching soccer teams and reffing games for our town’s recreation program. (Been doing this since Freshman year)

Is my chance of getting into any top 20 or 30 school gone completely out the window?

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A few thoughts:

-Are you a rising senior?
-Your other thread says your SAT is 1200…did you take it again and get 1520?
-First things first…will you still meet your high school graduation requirements with an F in algebra 2?
-Will your high school accept an online summer school course and let you progress to pre-calc or stats?
-Is the 3.3 GPA unweighted? Does it include this semester’s grades, and the F?

You have to understand the reasons behind the failing grade. Is it content, or pace, or study habits? What did you do this year to try to bring your grade up, eg., seeing the teacher outside of class, doing extra problems, seeing a tutor whether in school or private? Do you think you can succeed in an online course?

Regardless of the F, I don’t think T20/30 schools are possible due to your GPA. Figure out your next steps regarding math. Then, when building your college list, include a couple of reaches, 4-6 matches and 1-2 highly likelies (that you can also afford)…based on the combination of your SAT and unweighted GPA. You can use Naviance (if your school has it) to properly assess which bucket schools fall into, the CollegeBoard search site, or any number of other online college search engines. Good luck.

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I’ll let someone else handle the college question-- I want to focus in on the math question

I’ve been teaching math since 1980. Algebra II & Trig is a HARD class, regardless of who teaches it.

And, to be honest, I’m not sure I agree with your plan to retake this class online. It’s hard enough with a teacher in the room; I can’t imagine it in an online class.

The school year isn’t over yet-- why not see whether you can pull that F up? My guess is that you have a final that will probably have a pretty big impact on your grade?

You can google a list of the formulas you need, from quadratic formula to the sum/product of the roots to the discriminant and all the trig stuff. Find one, then go through it, maybe with a classmate, to determine which ones are necessary for your school’s version of this class. Then make some old fashioned flash cards on index cards, writing (not typing; you’ll remember better) each one. And memorize, memorize, memorize. You can’t do the math if you don’t know the formulas cold.

This afternoon, or tomorrow, speak with your teacher before or after school. Don’t ask for free points. But express your desire to finish the year as strongly as possible, and ask for advice. What can you do between now and the end of the year to pull up your grades?

I have to assume, from your OP, that you don’t owe any homeworks, that they’ve all been completed with care. That you don’t owe any makeup tests.

Ask when extra help is, and what you can do before attending extra help. Arrive at extra help with particular questions-- not “how can I pass?” but “how do you figure out what to add to both sides when completing the square?” So you’ll be doing math to prepare for extra help, during extra help, and then after extra help.

If he/she doesn’t suit your learning style, go to another math teacher. Regardless of what we’re teaching this year, every teacher in the math department should be capable of helping you in Algebra 2&Trig. If you did well in Geometry last year, consider asking your Geometry teacher.

Good luck!!

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What you are doing isn’t working…here are ideas for what else to try:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2026961-what-to-do-when-you-arent-doing-well-in-a-hs-class-p1.html

Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or chemistry whatever. Watch online videos (e.g., Khan Academy) about the topic you are studying.

Get a tutor!!

Go to your teacher’s help hours!!!

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You named colleges in your other post. I’m not sure you understand what they look for. And for premed, a top 30 will look at your stem grades. Plus, once in college, you’ll need to deal with stem courses designed to weed out premeds.

In that respect, yes, do whatever you can to both understand what went wrong with this course and to improve your core math thinking skills. As well as mitigating an F or D geade.

You need to assess those ECs, too. Not sure why someone wanting med school would train to be a med asst. You could expand your experience in a healthcare setting in your community, working with this and the needs, more than teaching little kids or cleaning parks.

4H is super. But the essay is meant to show certain traits the top colleges want in their class, not just tell why you love the activity.

You need to decide if you want a med future enough to pick the right college targets for your grades and ECs. Not just focus on their ranking in some media reports.

Think about your best EC options for this summer and fall.

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@Mwfan1921 Hi thank you for replying! Yes, I am a rising senior and I retook the SAT in May and got a much better score. Yes, I will still meet my high school requirements because I have gotten a B+ or higher in all my other courses.
Yes, my school does accept the online summer school as it was my counselor’s recommendation and I have previously taken a course online (not for summer school just for fun). My school does not give out your gpa until you are a senior and are applying to colleges so I do not know my exact score. I am only assuming its a 3.3 because I used raised me and inputted all my grades including the F. My counselor and I had a long conversation about why I failed the course and I still don’t truly understand why. I don’t necessarily excel at math but I’m decent considering my other math courses have been A’s and I even took an intro Stats class at a local university. I get 100s on the graded homework assignments but I get 60s or below on the tests and quizzes. My sat score was 760 on each section. No matter what my grade is for this last marking period I will fail so the online course is my only option.

@bjkmom Thank you for responding! I don’t have a major final coming up, just some quizzes and a test. I failed the first three marking periods so no matter what grade I get at the end of this marking period, it will still be an F. I’ve regularly been attending help period since my first quiz back in September because that was the first bad grade I received my entire high school career.

@bopper Thank you for replying! But I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for the remainder of this class.

@lookingforward Thank you for responding! As for the medical assisting course, I spoke with a college admissions officer my freshman year and she said to take as many STEM / Medical classes I can. I told her about the Medical Assisting course and she said I should go for it because it is a good intro class to take for prospective med students. I learn all the administrative and clinal duties of an MA (blood pressure, height & weight, etc.) as well as medical terminology and body systems. Through this course, I have gained a lot of clinical experience and I have two upcoming interviews for working in a pediatric office. What EC’s would you recommend me to focus on or even start doing?

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How much time do you spend per week reading the chapters and doing homework? Do you do any extra problems on your own? How do you prepare for a test?

To me this suggests that when doing the homework you flip back in the chapter for each problem, find a similar worked example, then use that as a guide to answer the question. Correct?

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As a former teacher and the parent of a senior, here is what I am thinking: exams count for a huge part of your grade, and homework/classwork for a smaller part. The teacher counts homework that’s completed but not necessarily completed correctly. This is how one of my daughter’s teachers graded. I am hoping you have enough time to get the support you need to finish with a higher grade through current teacher/other math teacher/tutor. Personally I don’t think online classes are the best solution. You have received good advice here. Your SAT score tells me you are capable of solving this problem. Wishing you the best @Intercollege!

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With a 760 on the SAT-m, you have plenty of the skills needed to do well in Alg 2.

Based on your list of EC’s, it looks to me that you are over-subscribed. Two time consuming varsity sports and a bunch of other things takes time away from academics. If you are just ‘surviving’ AP classes, you should take fewer next year, or cut back on the EC’s.

STEM classes require a strong foundation in Math, so I’d consider repeating Alg II next year; precalc is too risky. AP Stats only requires Alg I skillset, but does require Alg 2 thinking/manipulation skills. Probably not worth the chance of another low grade. (Above advice assumes that you don’t reduce your EC list to free up time for academics.)

Yes, a T30 school is out of teh question with a 3.3.

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I also agree with retaking this class in person and not online.

I will also advise to never again wait this long to address an academic struggle. After the very first test you should have started going to extra help sessions and for tutoring. That will be a good habit to get into for college where the pace of classes is such that it is very easy to fall behind.

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I’m not going to gloss over things: failing a core class is bad. You need to get the highest grade possible on your final to help mitigate that and at least try to get a D. Do as others have suggested above.

Getting into med school is about high grades in college and doing well on the MCAT. You don’t have to go to a top 30 school to get into med school. Be glad that this happened in high school rather than in college. Once you’re in college, you need to ensure you are on top of course material right from the start. You have very few opportunities in college to fix a low grade. Plan to attend office hours, study groups, and the tutoring center right from the start.

Focus on making a list based on your GPA and test scores, not on prestige.

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OP, just saying: I somehow doubt that rep was from one of the reachy reaches on your list.

Most advice to premed wannabes would be rigor in cores, esp stem, and relevant math-sci ECs. The competition for most of the colleges on your prior list might have experience researching, something at a hospital or clinic that reflects the work doctors and nurses do with patients. And more.

Why not see what more you can do this summer and fall, not this role in another office. Can your contacts get you into thehospital or clinic environment, where there’s often more urgency in what’s done for patients?

Other parents may have other input, but when aiming for tippy tops, many of those kids arn’t taking the para-professional classes- med coding, anatomy, etc.

See what you can come up with.

In any case, given the option of ignoringthe poor grade or doing something, I opt for that something. If it’s an online class, beats nothing. The difference here is OP wants a college track that relies heavily on all stem skills and thinking/problem solving.

And we don’t want her to be weeded out, when she hits the first math classes in college. We want her to be ready. If you htink this course was confusing, you may be stunned by it, in college.

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In my experience most very strong students at some point run into a wall, where they get to a class that they find very difficult. Since we have never had a hard class before, it can take some time to learn how to handle this. This is something that it is good to learn in high school, since it will happen again for nearly any student when they get to university.

I am not all that concerned about your getting one F. The thing that concerns me is that it is in Algebra 2. Algebra is too core to too much that you are going to need to do in the future. I think that you at a minimum need a tutor for this. If you take this on-line over the summer, then you will need to also have a good tutor at the same time. Note that “good tutor” largely means one that you mesh with well. Any good math tutor will know algebra very well.

The next time that you run into a hard class, you need to seek out extra help early. Do not wait until the week before the final. The second or third week of the course would be a good time to see the teacher for extra help or to sign up to see a tutor on a regular basis. If you are pretty sure that a class will be tough, you might want to arrange a tutor before the class even starts. Given your experience with algebra 2, you might want to do this for whatever math class you take next year.

Also, in the future if school gets tough, you need to think about what else you can drop in life. Academics needs to take precedence over ECs.

This might not seem like it right now, but this may help you to understand what to do and how to approach it when you run into hard courses when you are in university.

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@mikemac I get about an hour of homework a night. We get homework every night except for days we have a quiz or a test. I do all my regular problems without looking in the back I just flip through my notes and circle the problem(s) I needed help on. Then I typically use khan academy and do some practice problems and then go back to the textbook and do any problems relating to that. I always go in the morning to check my answers with her teacher copy. We find out about tests/quizzes about two days before and I spend those days just studying and reviewing all my notes and homework. The same I do for all my other classes. Thank you for responding!

@whidbeyite2002 One reason in particular why my teacher is known for being such a hard teacher is because she does grade the homework. It is graded just like a quiz or a test but is just worth a minor grade like classwork. If you get any problems wrong, you won’t get a 100. Thank you for replying!

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@bluebayou When I say survived I mean it in the sense that I took those two classes without it killing my gpa. I got an A- in Apush and A+ in AP Lang. Thank you for replying!

@momofsenior1 I went to help the very first quiz and have been going almost every day for the entire school year. Thank you for replying!

@Lindagaf Thak you for the advice.

@lookingforward She was from Tufts. I can apply to have a volunteer position at a local pediatric hospital. However, I am not 18 and won’t be allowed to do certain things (I’ve spoken to one of their volunteer reps who spoke in our class).
I will submit my application if it will look better volunteering at a hospital instead of working in a pediatric office. Thank you again for replying. You’ve been very helpful.

@DadTwoGirls I did go to help early but I still don’t have any luck. I will try and find a tutor to help me while I take the online course. Thank you for responding.

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I can mostly do 30 straight push-ups, except for the couple of rest breaks.

As for your top school chances, here is the FAQ: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1525399-if-you-are-asking-for-your-chances-to-ivies-and-other-top-schools.html Your chances were low before, and now - they’re still low.

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I’m even more concerned that you say you have been going all year for extra help with no improvement in your performance. That says to me that you fundamentally didn’t learn the concepts. I encourage you again to not retake this on line. It’s such a foundational class and you will need to really get it before moving on to higher levels of math.

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Assuming this is an hour of homework for this class then it should be enough work. I’m not clear from what you’ve written if you are solving problems without referring to your notes and without using answers or explanations you saw a few minutes earlier. This could be the difference between the tests (closed book) and doing the homework. If you just looked something up in your notes or watched it on Khan Academy then it is fresh in your mind and is one particular point; when you do practice problems it isn’t too hard. The quiz and test are on many topics and its been hours or a nite since you reviewed the material. If it wasn’t really cemented in your mind then you find you can’t apply it as well as you could on the homework. I suggest doing practice problems without reviewing your notes or the book or Khan Academy. You can find practice problems in your book, and more in https://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Trigonometry-Problem-Solvers-Solution/dp/0878915087

As for studying for tests and quizes, daily or almost daily study is better than massed study like you’re doing the 2 days before. The problem with studying the day or two before the test is you read thru it a few times and it all looks very familiar, but this confuses recognition with recall. Second, reviewing itself is not an effective practice. Studies show that self-testing is much better than reviewing. Stop reviewing and spend the time on doing practice problems from the book mentioned above and thinking about why the approach you use for the problem works. Sometimes a student mechanically applies a series of steps from an example to a new problem; the values change so they just crank away but nothing really sticks; they aren’t learning. Read the story of a TA who forced students to rehearse in [Teaching linear algebra](Random Observations: Teaching linear algebra) and you’ll see what I mean here. Cal Newport has written several books for students on learning and he writes about how to do well in a math class at http://www.calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/14/how-to-ace-calculus-the-art-of-doing-well-in-technical-courses/

There is a book I recommend you read this summer about learning called “Make it Stick”. It talks about what works best and has lots of tips for HS and college students.

I agree with previous posters, take this class again next year. Trying to push thru this summer to stay on a self-imposed schedule will hurt you more, given your goals of medicine, in the long run.

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OP is now a junior. Repeating alg 2 next school year means no calc.

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Sure, but IMHO the most important issue is that they did not learn algebra. Full stop. Go no farther. I don’t see a benefit to trying to keep on a pace with the strongest students anymore; the likely result would be to end HS knowing neither Algebra nor Calculus.

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