Would this huge mistake not allow me to get into good colleges?

Hi @sid200y,

Honestly, you are worrying too much about nothing.

If you already enrolled in Scout through the UC Santa Cruz AP program and got an A in Calc B/C you have done all that you could have possibly done to show future college admissions readers that you corrected your mistake.

It doesn't matter one way or the other if your HS expunges the F in Calc B/C. Why because the story of recognizing your failure, getting up and trying harder, and getting As is a great story. And college admissions readers love an underdog that falls on their face from getting over on their skis, brushes themselves off, and bombs down the ski slope like an Olympic skier.

It's true your GPA is not going to be close to perfect anymore, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that you communicate that you bit off more than you could chew and it bit you in the butt for being so overconfident that you could take the hardest AP math in 10th grade and end up with an A. Like the other poster mentioned, 99% of HS students do not attempt AP Calc B/C in 10th grade unless they are a math genius on their way to applying to Caltech or MIT. In hindsight, I hope you learned a valuable lesson which is that you should never eat with your eyes but put just the right amount of food on your plate.

There is a special section of the Common App called the Add'l Information section. Definitely use this area to explain your mistake and the step you took to correct your mistake. I think an honest, humble, explanation would be better than trying to blame your Calculus teacher, that would be a huge mistake and backfire. When math is too difficult to follow along, it's always the path of least resistance to blame the Calculus teacher. But I know for a fact that other people in your class who were Juniors and Seniors did pass the class. Maybe they didn't all get As, but Bs and Cs but they still passed, and I'm sure some of them got decent marks on their AP test scores. So don't blame your math teacher for your grades. You have to own the truth which is that you should NOT have attempted this difficult feat in the first place.

I think whether you get accepted into a T20 college or not depends on the rest of your academic and EC narratives and how you explain this AP Calc B/C debacle. If you write about it as a learning experience, that will show maturity and patience.

If what you did to fix the F isn't apparent when the college admissions officer looks at your transcript, you should explain that in the additional information section on your application.

Most students take AP Calc BC in their junior/senior year. Colleges wouldn't expect you to get an A since you took it in your sophomore year, but an F is an issue. As you've already made the efforts and improved your grade, the "F" will not have as negative an impact as it would've had without you retaking the course.

If you want to, you can mention that your teacher was difficult (it won't help much and would use unnecessary space if you have better things to talk about in your application). I'm not saying that you're lying, but instead of just showing the negative aspects that affected your grade, you can use the same situation to demonstrate how you've grown through it. You can describe what you learned from the experience (something like "refrain from biting off more than I can chew.") Then, you can say what you did differently that got you an A.

There's many aspects of an application other than GPA. If you're aiming for T20s, even a 4.0 GPA won't guarantee admissions. You'll need great extracurriculars and essays. Since you're planning to take CS as a major, relevant experience will be helpful.

Hope this helps!

As others have said, your F will not guarantee a rejection from T20 schools. To make up for it, explain the context behind your F and how you have tried rectify it in the Additional Information section. Getting good grades in rigorous classes for the rest of high school is important as well so you can demonstrate an upward trajectory since the F. Lastly, do CS-related ECs and projects that will make you stand out. You could build an app, create a game, optimize a system, play around with Big Data and the Internet of Things, etc. - all of it will show that your F was simply an anomaly. Hope this helps!