Is Pre-Calc Enough?

[Anonymous]

Instead, have her use some of her time over the summer to work on writing good essays for the Commn App and supplements. There's more potential upside (vs taking Calculus a couple of months earlier) admissions-wise and it'll make the whole process less stressful. It may also lead to better decisionmaking if it gets her to focus on which schools are the best match for her and why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of the elite colleges (Ivies, Stanford) require students who are clearly arts/humanities majors to take calculus. If you state your interest in a STEM field, they expect calculus and lots of AP science on the transcript. However, those students aren't expected to have lots of advanced literature classes. So an arts/humanities student will have higher expectations on their essay and classes beyond AP English plus editing the school literary journal and exceptional recs from art/humanities teachers.

Colleges don't accept or reject you based on your presumed major.

You're right, there are no separate admissions by likely major. But, an elite engineer looks very different than an elite humanities student. Admissions officers, teacher recs, and alumni interviewers all know the difference and they rate the students accordingly.

[Anonymous]

My DC got into an ivy with statistic senior year. He got 35 on the math ACT though. Could have done Calc but preferred to use his time to do an independent study in a topic he thoroughly loves. The top schools
Have many kids who have almost perfect records to choose from so they are looking for kids who are self driven to do something interesting and unique in some aspect of their high school studies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know class of 2020 kids with Pre Calculus as highest math that were admitted to William and Mary, UVA, USC , Wake Forest. Tulane, Middlebury, Northeastern, Villanova, U of Richmond, Colgate, Boston College,, UNC, wash U, Bucknell and Cornell and lots of other schools. Our counselor told DC not to worry and it was not an issue for DC or classmates. I am responding to this post because attitudes such as those reflected in previous posts used to keep me up at night and it turned out to be a non issue for DC or classmates.

Thank you, PP! I can second this from the experiences of two kids and their classmates. Stop the insanity. Colleges don't turn away, bright accomplished kids because they didn't take the highest math class offered at their school.

+100

I also have college-aged kids and can vouch that the above is true. My own child took AP Stats (no calc whatsoever) and got into three of the above mentioned schools. Some kids excel at the humanities; math is not the end-all, be-all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids I've known that were accepted to top 20 schools (not for sports) had calculus or beyond. The girls, in particular, who stopped at pre-calc did not do as well. All anecdotal evidence but the colleges are quite clear that they want the most rigorous courses.

I'm guessing the reason they didn't do well had to do with something other than calculus. Unless you're a STEM major, most colleges DO NOT CARE. I think it shows more self-knowledge for the average kid to get to upper level math and say, I don't get this, I don't want to get this and I don't see the relevance this math will have in my life so I'm going to focus my limited energies elsewhere. By the time you get to Calculus you have taken all the math you need. And as another poster noted, many colleges require you to take or retake Calculus freshman year.

EXACTLY.

[Anonymous]

My kid took AP stats senior year and got into Northwestern, Cornell, and Duke (plus others). She is a humanities kid through and through, good at math but just had no interest in taking calc in HS.