>>12675096those people certainly have a strength that opens doors to grad school opportunities, but that's the bulk of what an innate undergrad math proficiency really represents. takes some of the heavy lifting off for a couple of semesters (precalc and calc II for most people is fucked because of trig identities) but if you schedule your semesters correctly you can stay competitive with those people from a GPA standpoint by committing more hours to it
if I were doing it again, I would have taken all math courses during summer sessions. firstly because i'm fucking garbage in the early AM and the scheduling during fall and spring semesters always seemed to require I take 8am math courses, but also because they're slightly accelerated and you can work with your prof more
most calc teachers will basically give you what you need to ace an exam if you go to their office and say "this is what i'm having trouble with" and show them three or four problems (even if you get the right answer on your own, there are shortcuts and ways to do it more efficiently). in my experience they'll literally say "do not worry about x, you don't need to worry about y either, and only really focus on this part of z" which is the same thing as saying "i'm not going to test you on half of this shit, and here is the half you should know"
