Taking Both AP Calc AB (Junior Year) and AP Calc BC (Senior Year)
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Anonymous
| Not permitted at our high school. It’s one or the other |
Anonymous
| Depends on (a) what’s standard at your high school and (b) how desperate you are for prestige. Calc AB as a senior is perfectly fine preparation for someone going into engineering. But if you have a hyper competitive kid applying from a hyper competitive high school to hyper selective colleges, Calc AB as a senior might not deliver the level of admissions prestige you crave. |
Anonymous
I agree. My DD this (AB then BC) and went on to VT for CS. She had a solid foundation in her math classes when a lot of her peers struggled. Math isn't taught very well at Tech, according to her. She did just fine in engineering following this path. Se secured a summer intern her freshman year and every year that followed. She entered her senior year with numerous job offers. But she opted to go to Stanford for grad school (where she is now) because Lockheed Martin is paying for it, and then she will work with them upon graduation. She advised her younger brother, who also ended up majoring in engineering, to do the AB/BC route despite his teachers recommending he jump to BC. He has gotten into every college he applied to. He hasn't decided where he's going yet. Georgia Tech is where he's leaning. It's a solid path. There is no rush. Unless you're going to MIT, you can, but you don't need multivariable/linear algebra in 12th grade. |
Anonymous
Funny. Our Hs requires it. |
Anonymous
| What does this mean: Rigor is a threshold or a tier? As long as you take calculus, top colleges don't care what further math you take, even if your school offers more? Maybe it makes folks feel better, but I really doubt that's true. |
Anonymous
Maybe your college counselor treats it that way, but most schools do not and that isn't how admissions look at it (when they actually look at every transcript). Under no system will a student who took a bunch of APs, but did not take multivar be consider "not most rigorous." |
Anonymous
Ours has a track where precalc and AB are covered in one year, one semester each, and BC is the next. That track only takes the BC exam. |
Anonymous
| My DD is doing this path now. Took AB last year and now in BC. She didn’t feel ready for BC last year. I think it’s fine and gives her a more solid understanding of calculus. Only the last two units in BC are new content, which they are starting just now. Interestingly, even though BC was a repeat the first semester she did better in AB, different teacher who she liked better. |
Anonymous
| Our school has two options. Direct to BC or AB followed by BC. They recommend the second for kids who need more time to master the concepts. But plenty for direct to BC. Both end up in the same place. Though the direct to Bc kids have more time to take linear algebra/multi etc. |
Anonymous
Our school allows you to go straight to BC but strongly recommends AB-->BC for students who are ready for calculus in junior year. My son did that and is in a math heavy -major at VT. Lots of kids struggle with math at VT. From AP credits he skipped calc 1 but took Calc 2 and was glad he did. It was still challenging but he got an A and had a really strong foundation before going on to higher level math. There is no reason to rush through math classes. You need to really understand calculus if you are going to be an engineering major, or other major with a lot of higher level math. |
Anonymous
Math is sequential. The vast, vast majority of students do not have time in high school to take multivariable. No student is getting dinged in admissions for taking AB and then BC, even if the high school allows students to take BC as a standalone course which could lead to taking multivariable. |
Anonymous
OTOH, calculus class has a lot of irrelevant "play puzzle" topics like nowhere differentiable functions and indefinite integrals and series, that are nearly completely irrelevant to engineering. Going through more of the basics is more important than doing these advanced "pure math" topics. |
Anonymous
What are you disagreeing with? Congrats, your child is a rare genius and has good teachers. I'm proud of you. |
Anonymous
True. In fact the kids at our school who got into the top colleges were not the ones in the multivariable class. |
Anonymous
You aren't disagreeing; you are just saying your kid did it this way. That does not mean that is what colleges want from everyone. Obviously, at your kid's college, he was an outlier -- otherwise the classes he skipped would not be the 'weed out' classes. Most students actually take them in college. |