AP Calc A/B or B/C

[Anonymous]

What should my child consider when choosing between these classes for junior year? We are in MD so students are required to take math all 4 years.

[Anonymous]

IF your kid is not into math- I would take AB next year since education probably won't be as robust due to distance learning in the spring.

[Anonymous]

If your child is getting to Calc junior year, they are probably a strong student. I would take B/C and then MV as a senior..or AP stats. If they are struggling at all in honors pre-calc though..choose A/B. Also consider possible college majors. Tech programs will like to see MV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child is getting to Calc junior year, they are probably a strong student. I would take B/C and then MV as a senior..or AP stats. If they are struggling at all in honors pre-calc though..choose A/B. Also consider possible college majors. Tech programs will like to see MV.

AP Statistics is a great class. Calculus (the subject) is fun, but statistics is useful for everyone, no matter what they do.

[Anonymous]

Going straight to BC can be a slog, depending on the teacher there won’t be much support for topics that could have been learned in AB. My DC is doing it now, but was motivated and worked through a lot of material last summer. If you can get any info on the teacher/class structure at your HS, I’d base a decision on that over advice here. Our HS only has one BC teacher and two sections. Even so, they almost lost a section given the number of students who switched back to AB at the beginning of the year. If your DC isn’t highly motivated or just has other obligations, treat it as a two year sequence. AP stats is a good elective, but don’t consider it a core course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child is getting to Calc junior year, they are probably a strong student. I would take B/C and then MV as a senior..or AP stats. If they are struggling at all in honors pre-calc though..choose A/B. Also consider possible college majors. Tech programs will like to see MV.

Tech programs don't care at all about a high school multivariable class. They know it will be very surface level and students will retake the course in college anyways. If you had said BC Calc, I would agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Going straight to BC can be a slog, depending on the teacher there won’t be much support for topics that could have been learned in AB. My DC is doing it now, but was motivated and worked through a lot of material last summer. If you can get any info on the teacher/class structure at your HS, I’d base a decision on that over advice here.

I agree with this advice. We had heard critiques of the BC teacher at our school that made us think the class wouldn't be the best fit for our kid. Our junior is now in AB, still a challenging course, and working hard for A's. We felt that it was a good choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child is getting to Calc junior year, they are probably a strong student. I would take B/C and then MV as a senior..or AP stats. If they are struggling at all in honors pre-calc though..choose A/B. Also consider possible college majors. Tech programs will like to see MV.

I agree with the advice above -- it's not just about precalc as an indicator of success but about the teacher and program at your kid's HS, plus the factor of distance learning for the remainder of precalc.

My oldest is very, very strong in math. He sailed through all previous math classes, including precalc. Calc BC was a dose of cold water in the face -- he had to work his butt off for a B first semester junior year, his first B ever. He's also had to work his butt off in MV this year. He's at WJHS and the teacher, Mr. Choi, is very good but hard-core. From what my DS reports, the AP BC exam was a piece of cake and most of his classmates got 5s. Don't get me wrong, I thought his having Mr. Choi was a great experience for him, to have that class difficulty approximating a college-level course and to learn the discipline of doing all problem sets on time, every night to keep up. Being a strong math student and having no struggles in pre-calc, however, was not an indication that BC

There's nothing wrong with doing AB junior year and BC senior year; I know plenty of DS' classmates who have gotten into technical and engineering programs without MV.

[Anonymous]

Oops, didn't complete my thought. Success in precalc did not predict that BC would be similarly easy.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input. I think A/B is probably the best fit.

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind also that it's not clear that they're going to learn the full pre-calc curriculum this spring. My dd was going to take BC but we're reconsidering...