Definitely don ' t pick FM over Finals , for two reasons 1 For FM , fails don ' t follow you . That is , if you fail in December and then pass in February , no one will ever know you failed in December . Your only loss is the time and money for the sitting , acknowledging that timemoney spent preparing isn ' t a waste since you ' ll take it again . 2 How well you pass your finalsclasses matters . Passing FM is yesno , whereas passing your finals could be the difference between an A or a B . I feel like the number one thing people have that ' s ' unfixable ' is a bad GPA . That being said , up until your finals week , just put in what you can for FM . Starting the 5 th or earlier drop FM and focus on your classes . After your last final , take a day off to just relax and recoup . Then hit FM hard , but remember worst case scenario you can just take it again in February . Don ' t drive yourself crazy over it . For me , the bottom line is you ' ve already committed to the Dec 16 th attempt . Don ' t blow it off because any work you do preparing for it isn ' t wasted even if you take FM in February , but the more you put into it , the more you might be able to knock it out in December . You ' ll even know exactly where you stand pretty early into your winter break , so it ' s not like there ' s much sacrifice there . To me , it ' s a no riskall reward type thing .