MCPS high school math- 12th grade
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Anonymous
| Is two years of Calc required/desired by selective colleges? |
Anonymous
Not at all, but taking a strong math class senior year is a good idea, especially if intended major will need calc. AP Statistics is a completely different set of skills, so it is seen as a way to check out if math senior year. |
Anonymous
| OP, I'd talk to the school counselor, the precalc teacher, and maybe the calc teacher/head of the math department as well. First, as PP noted, your child needs help getting through whatever the problems are right now, to ensure a solid basis for moving on to whatever the next level is. Second, don't try to make your kid keep up with the rat race if precalc is hard -- based on the advice you get and how well your kid does in precalc, consider the calculus w/applications or at most A/B. B/C is brutal for a strong math kid (at least at DC's HS), and multivariable is even worse. A kid with AP Calc AB (or AB followed by BC) is a high-achieving kid even without the hardest of the hard classes. |
Anonymous
Thanks. Unfortunately the counselor is absolutely terrible and we’ve reached out to the precalc teacher and he doesn’t respond. We’ve hired a tutor. I’m just trying to understand the math options in MCPS since we haven’t gotten any insight from the school. |
Anonymous
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I would suggest Calc AB, then AP Stats and/or multivariable senior year.
Calc BC is a tough class. And it would place your student in a very high math class freshman year (Calc 3) if he goes to UMD. |
Anonymous
| Multivariate calculus is Calc 3. |
Anonymous
| At our mcps hs they take the UMD Calc 3 final at the end of multivar. |
Anonymous
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Didn’t know UMD gave credit for HS multivariable. Does that include the Engineering School?
If you take Calc BC plus multivariable (assuming you get credit for that since not an AP), you would start with Differential Equations at UMD. Another tough class for a freshman. But it can be done. |
Anonymous
| My senior is in AP Statistics |
Anonymous
What did they take in 11th? |
Anonymous
Have him do what the Asian students do and retake it in summer. Transcript gets the higher grade |
Anonymous
Pre-Calc Your daughter isn’t required to take Calc. Just get through Pre-Cal, and move on. |
Anonymous
AB is basically first semester engineering level calculus and BC is second semester. I think it also (very roughly) translates to three semesters for humanities college level calculus (a semester per letter). At my school growing up, you had to do AB before BC, but at a lot of schools, BC just moves faster and covers the A, B, and C material. |
Anonymous
In MCPS BC, just covers more material and is not taught as a continuation of AB, although you can get credit for both. That means going straight to BC is challenging, but my DC who took BC after taking AB, was disappointed that BC still felt like a slog. Having taken AB meant she was already comfortable with the conceptual underpinnings, but the class is still about the problem sets and constant quizzes, so it is time consuming no matter how prepared, e.g. taking BC two years in a row would be almost as much work the second year. But the thing is calc is now considered HS math for anyone who's college bound. If it's certain the goal is a college major that uses no math, at a college that doesn't have a general ed math requirement, then fine skip it. But many people do end up needing to take math in college, in which case, a course like Stats senior year (which is more vocabulary than refreshing math skills), may make passing a college class later more difficult. And for schools that have general ed math requirements, skipping calc entirely in HS will look like a weakness. Also, math is becoming popular so, don't shut your kid out just because it wasn't your thing. Math is my thing, but I was surprised that after only tolerating math in HS, my DCs favorite class freshman year of college is calc (this time it goes a little beyond BC topics and the emphasis is more formal). Her school requires a math class even with AP credit, credit can only be used for electives. I also heard from a math prof at another small liberal arts college, that among non-majors the number of students taking math as an elective has doubled or tripled over the course of his career, and there too calc is popular with freshmen. So outside the engineering track there are reasons to stick it out. Another possible pathway in MCPS: regular pre-calc, calc w/apps, calc AB. |
Anonymous
He is a Sophomore in pre-calc so needs two more math classes. |