I have all A’s except for the following grades: Geometry (H)- Semester 1:B- Semester 2: B+.
Algebra 2- Semester 1: B Semester 2: B+. Biology (H)- Semester 1: C+ Semester 2: C. I took 4 APs: AP English Language and Composition, AP US History, AP World History, and AP Art History. I also not only took Biology Honors and Geometry Honors, but Spanish lll (H) as well. Do you think my grades that weren’t A’s will overall hurt my chances of getting into top schools? I am also in NHS and have an academic letter.
The top schools I’m interested in are Clemson, Mercer, Elon, etc. they are pretty holistic though.
Have you taken the ACT or SAT yet?
I'm going optional
Hi, it would appear from what you are sharing that Math is your #1 weakness and then Sciences would be #2. It's clear that the 2 years of math covering Algebra and Geometry were challenging and that will have an impact on how competitive you look compared to other students at top colleges. I would say that I'm confused about the Cs in Biology because you mention it twice. So I'm guessing that Honors Bio was the class that you got the Cs in. That again like the math, puts your transcript down a notch compared to other applicants.
In my opinion, the only way to correct that is to get As in higher Maths or higher Science classes. But since both math and science are hard for you, I would suggest taking them over during the summer or through online school separate from your school.
For me, my hardest classes were Algebra 2 and Pre-Calc. While I got low As, I knew that I would find Calc. hard during my senior year. So I didn't want to risk it. Therefore I took an online college Calc course through Outlier.org over the summer. I found the teaching styles more conducive to my comfort level because all the lectures are self-paced and you can watch them over and over. And since they typically have 3-10 different profs. creating the content, you might like a certain prof. more than another. They still cover the same material. I mention this because since I did that over a year ago, they now have added, college Algebra and Pre-Calc in addition to Calc. And they have an astronomy class that looks fun. The benefit of these courses is that if you pass, you get college credit and a transcript and it looks good for your course rigor. Now if you don't pass, you get your money back but that should never be the goal. If you focus on something like this you should be able to get an A as long as you do the work.
The Bio is a bit concerning, so I would find out if you can take Bio over and have that BIO(H) mark expunged from your academic record. Many schools permit that. I think that if you found BIO hard it would be equally or more difficult to take Chemistry, Env.Science or Physics (especially Physics since so much of it relies on Math formulae).
The key thing is that with the college admission process being test-optional, more scrutiny now is placed on your GPA and transcript course rigor. There was a time when you could pad your application with SAT subject tests but those have been phased out. And now the only path for padding is taking a bunch of APs and getting 4s and 5s on the actual tests. It doesn't seem that you are well suited to take AP Calc, AP Chem or AP Physics, or AP Bio.
Perhaps this is not what you wanted to hear but I think if you understand my logic you will understand that goal must be to remove those worst marks and show some kind of an upward trend with the Bs in Geom. and Algebra.
Good luck.
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