<p>I’ve noticed too and I feel for you. Unfortunately my daughter wants to become an engineer and most of the schools require AT LEAST (shouty caps intended) pre-calc. Bad news, due to an extended illness in 10th grade, she got off track on her math courses and now will only graduate with Trig. under her belt so don’t know quite how this will play out, but she did well on her SAT and ACT so that might mitigate things a bit. Maybe this could be the case for you as well. However, like UCBAlum said, unless you’re applying to the most selective schools or your major is engineering or physics or well, math, it probably won’t be a huge deal breaker provided your other classes are college prep courses. They’ll probably just require you to take whatever courses you need for your major. I would take a deep cleansing breath, hit send on that common app and send positive thoughts along with it.</p>
<p>Back in the Stone Age when I grunted through high school we didn’t have pre-calc. The progression (at least in my school) was 9th grade-Algebra, 10th grade-Geometry, 11th grade-Algebra 2/Trig, 12th grade-Calc. This was California in the early 80’s though where we had to do our homework on the cave walls, so I’m not even sure what pre-calc is to be honest, other than a huge source of anxiety. I wonder if anyone else from that time and place (late 70’s early 80’s- state of CA) has the same recollection.</p>