Taking Statistics in 12th grade instead of Calculus
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Anonymous
| For a humanities student not targeting a top 25 or so college, Statistics senior year is an excellent plan. She’s almost certainly going to have to take a Stats class in college, and having the HS background will greatly help with understanding. It’s a great class and I wish more kids would take it regardless of if they plan on taking AP Calc. |
Anonymous
| OP here. DD is a strong humanities and English student (good GPA because of her non-STEM classes with Math being the lowest and anomalous grade) so she will be targeting top 25 schools and UMich, UVA, and maybe UCLA. She will not be applying to any Ivies. We're just concerned whether Statistics vs. calculus will be viewed as a negative by strong schools because they believe it indicates that the student was not willing to push themselves within the offered curriculum? Or do the top schools not care about the Math track because the student is clearly a history/English/humanities and foreign langauge kid. |
Anonymous
That's completely, entirely not true. I minored in statistics at the PhD level at Cornell, classes such as applied statistics, advanced experimental design, non-parametric analysis, etc. You can literally find 20 or more classes in statistics all involving actually USING statistics (and programming in R, SAS, Stata, etc.) where not one single lesson from calculus is used. |
Anonymous
Calc is one signal of rigor. Top colleges typically say they are looking for students who took the most demanding schedule available at the high school. There is a checkbox on the counselor form in the Common App asking exactly this, so this may be a follow-up question for that counselor, which box they would check. What AOs will think also depends on the rest of the schedule. They don't rely solely on which box the counselor checked. If she has APs in multiple other core subject areas (history, English, and one of bio/chem/physics), they can decide to overlook choosing not to take calc. I don't know what AOs think about students who didn't have the option to take calc due to their personal math track. I suspect this is more of a potential minor issue at top privates. Not a fan of publics for out-of-state students, as I think they are not a great value. But to each his own. |
Anonymous
The problem is the current B- in pre-calc. It indicates that calculus could be a real struggle. It is better to get an A in stats than a B- or worse in calculus. The OOS competition is very tough at Michigan, UVA and UCLA. Near perfect grades are the first criteria then rigor. |
Anonymous
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Thanks PP 13.07.
I think we are leaning with the "better to get an A/A- in statistics than work your tail off to get a B- or C+ in calculus when your intent is not to study Math/physics in college. |
Anonymous
I posted on the first page. I'm the PP whose DD did exactly what you describe and took prob/stat senior year. I'm curious: As an English/history student, is there any particular reason your DD is not looking at strong liberal arts colleges where she would have a far better professor-to-student ratio and much smaller, seminar-type classes throughout college including as a freshman? Just noting that for humanities students, yes, large schools can be great and there are terrific humanities programs out there at very large schools, but I wouldn't rule out all LACs if a student was into discussion, paper writing, etc. DD looked at UVA closely and liked its programs but in the end the size of classes turned her off it and now she's at a LAC (it's ranked in the top 20 among LACs if rank matters to you) where she has no more than 15 people in most freshman classes. Just something for your DD to think about. |
Anonymous
| If it is at all possible she'll be required to take calculus in college it might be better to get her first exposure in a more supportive environment. That said, there are college calculus tutors and most non-stem majors don't require calculus. |
Anonymous
We have a really good college advisor and she told us that if you are going humanities, you don't need the calculus. My total humanities DD thinks she wants to be a doctor, so she's going for calculus, even though she sucks at math. Good luck there. I am firmly convinced that she will be one of those pre-med college kids that switches to humanities. |
Anonymous
Finally! The is exactly the point. For the schools where stats versus Calc would matter, she’s already totally out of the running because of the B minus in pre-Calc. So frankly for the next tier schools – it’s fine either way. |
Anonymous
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Both my older kids took Stats as seniors - both were extreme humanities students with no interest in math, but found Stats useful. My younger child will be following suit, and will also be skipping physics and taking Geosystems instead.
At this point, we've decided to match the classes to our child's interests, and not to what some college admissions officers may or may not want to see. Life is too short. |
Anonymous
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Stats is much more useful. Take calc one and two in college, maybe differential equations max. Then spend all efforts learning stats, probability, and applied math.
Stats is wayyyyy more useful. |
Anonymous
OP let me first say that I absolutely think (as others have said) that for your kid, taking Statistics is absolutely the best plan. If she's struggling with the pre-Calc now, it will only be harder to do Calc next year, and she'll have her other advanced senior-level coursework to content with as well. Statistics is an extremely valuable thing to know, and she will definitely be able to use it in college and beyond, whereas based on her interests it is highly unlikely given her strengths and interests that Calculus will be useful. Having said all of that... I do think you need to recognize that top 25 schools are going to be a "reach" for her, because most of those are attracting most advanced-level students. This came up on another thread, so I'm going to paste it below. I think you'll find it particularly relevant, since it's talking about UVA, which is one of the schools you mentioned.
By all means, DD can still apply to schools like UVA, but I think it is also important for you to help her come up with a list of schools that will be more firmly in the "match" category for her. Again, I don't think you should read this stuff and conclude that your daughter MUST take Calc, because it's the only way she'll get into the top 25 schools. It's not going to improve her chances to sign up for Calculus and then get low grades. Again, long term she'd be better off with Stats. There is a great college out there for your daughter. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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DC attends a top public school - think Michigan/UCLA/UNC. (applied as an OOS student for all three schools).
DC got a 4 in Math for the IB which is probably the equivalent of a B- if not lower. Intended major has always been Comparative Politics. In our experience (of admittedly one student), a B- in Math does not preclude a student from those types of schools. Hope this gives other parents including OP some cause for optimism. |
Anonymous
| I have a humanities kid that is fairly good at math, she will be taking pre-calc in 10th and (I assume) AP calc in 11th. From this thread it seems like AP statistics would be fine in 12th even if she is targeting a top 20 school given her interests. Is that correct or am I missing something? |