College algebra as a required prereq?

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vanillawafer

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7+ Year Member
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I am a new student at a 4 year college and will be starting my first year this fall. I already received my classes and was curious why I didn't have any science courses on it (the classes are prescheduled for the first semester) so I asked one of my advisors. She said that I must take college algebra before I can take science classes or that I can take biology this year but I'll have to drop a class. I'm curious if this will hurt my chances as being a 4 year undergrad or not. I don't want to spend more time than I need to at a college. I currently have 15 credit hours but I could bump it to 18 if I wanted, however most bio classes are already booked as well. Am I screwed since I am behind in math? Will this mean I need to take summer classes or a gap year?

Thanks for the help and sorry if this wall of text is too much to understand. I can revise it if needed.
 
You should be able to take bio 101 and Chem 101 concurrent with a math class your freshman year - especially if you're a science major. I'd do all I could to get in those two classes. I was in a similar situation my freshman year. I started out as a finance major which prevented me from signing up for bio 101 bc it was full at the time which set me back a year for taking upper division bio courses.
 
You should be able to take bio 101 and Chem 101 concurrent with a math class your freshman year - especially if you're a science major. I'd do all I could to get in those two classes. I was in a similar situation my freshman year. I started out as a finance major which prevented me from signing up for bio 101 bc it was full at the time which set me back a year for taking upper division bio courses.
I am actually a psychology major with (obvious) premed track. the thing is I was prescheduled almost 2 months ago when people couldn't register for those classes yet.
 
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I am a new student at a 4 year college and will be starting my first year this fall. I already received my classes and was curious why I didn't have any science courses on it (the classes are prescheduled for the first semester) so I asked one of my advisors. She said that I must take college algebra before I can take science classes or that I can take biology this year but I'll have to drop a class. I'm curious if this will hurt my chances as being a 4 year undergrad or not. I don't want to spend more time than I need to at a college. I currently have 15 credit hours but I could bump it to 18 if I wanted, however most bio classes are already booked as well. Am I screwed since I am behind in math? Will this mean I need to take summer classes or a gap year?

Thanks for the help and sorry if this wall of text is too much to understand. I can revise it if needed.
Well, you have to take that algebra. Just take the algebra and bio. You can take a summer class to catch up on the chem stuff since those tend to be in sequence. Ask for a unit cap extension if you need it instead of dropping a class.
 
I would stick with 15 - 16 credits your first semester. You don't want to overload yourself while getting adjusted to college in order to maintain a high GPA. Also, you will want the extra time to put in to ECs.