Will dropping ap calc hurt my chances at college

mikemac
Mon, 24 Dec 2018 03:09:33 +0000

A D makes your app much less competitive (they will see when they get your 1st semester grades). If you don’t drop the class and get another D spring semester your admission may be revoked over the summer.

The real important thing, though, isn’t admissions but what this is telling you about your readiness for college-level work. In many HS classes a few hours review before the test and you’ve memorized enough to recognize the right answers or BS your way thru essay questions. And ironically smarter kids are more susceptible to this. Science & math classes, especially one like Calc, don’t work this way. In order to succeed you need hours of practice solving problems. Colleges know this, so the Calc grade is an indirect measure of study skills even for those intending a major far from math/science.

If you’ve been doing things like re-reading the chapter and your notes, you should know these are some of the least effective techniques. It is easy to confuse recognition with recall or the ability to apply the info. What does work is things like spacing out studying instead of cramming and repeatedly testing yourself by doing practice problems. Get the book “Make it Stick” and read it over the break, it explains what is known about learning and has tips for students.

hould I email schools and explain my grade?

About the last thing you should do! What are you going to “explain”? Many HS kids think an explanation is blaming a bad teacher or being too busy (such as with ECs) to study. Funny thing, though, adcoms don’t see that as exculpatory.