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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm not sure if it is a firm requirement, but our school strongly recommends Pre-Calc as a co-requisite with AP Physics 1.   My DS took it with honors pre-calc junior year and he said that the physics class actually helped him with some of the concepts in his math class.

Plenty of kids decide early on that they are set on STEM fields and stick with the plan.  I assume that your DS has had a lot of exposure to CS outside of the classroom and knows what he wants.  It makes sense that he would try to take calculus in high school when he's going to be competing for spots against kids with post-Calculus classes in high school.  But there are schools and programs out there for kids who take pre-calc senior year, too.

It's unclear if he is getting an 80 for the fourth quarter or an 80 as his final grade in the class.  Maybe he's never had a B before, but as the parent of students who have gotten Bs and even the occasional C, I can tell you that it doesn't mean that the kid didn't learn anything.  My younger DC got Bs in honors pre-calc (including some pretty low test grades here and there) and thought Calc AB was an easier class.

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The co-requisite of Pre-calc is indicative of a certain mastery of Algebra 2.  The question is, does he have enough of a basis in Algebra 2 to do well in the AP Physics 1 class.

My own kid did not take Pre-calc concurrently with algebra based Physics.  But he was an algebra guy and the math part for him of the Physics class was not that hard or all that complicated (for him).  What he was lacking was a foundation in Trig (he took non honors Alg 2).  He was able to pick up what he needed in Trig as he went through the Physics class.  I think he found the concepts in Physics and the application of the concepts to be more of a challenge than the actual math was.  What he learned in physics really helped him to do well in pre-cal and General Chem the next year.

Long story short, he went on to get accepted as a STEM major in college even w/o Calc.

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