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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Getting into "top" schools is a crapshoot. Why force a kid to advance in a subject that they don't particularly like, just for the shot at what is still an uncertain outcome?[/quote]

I’m the OP and I am not forcing my kid to do extra math. I posed the question on this thread because I want to know if there are examples of parents who didn’t force advanced math and their kids had good college placements. If advanced math is a minimum for top colleges, I can at least be informed about that as I let my kid be just ok at math. [/quote]
Many elementary math programs don't contain enough practice for a kid to stay on grade level.  They'll miss benchmarks for math fact fluency in early elementary and then slowly end up further and further behind.  Doing "extra" math is often work that used to be assigned as homework and is needed to stay on grade level.  It's not really about being advanced.[/quote]

The above is 100% correct.  It's very likely that if your daughter had been required to do more math, she would have been "better" at  it simply due to practice.

It can be hard to understand why more math practice is useful for kids who don't show eagerness and aptitude for math.  But it is helpful.  There are studies that show correlation (not causation) between women's math attainment and high-paying jobs.  This is correlated, not only because many high-paying jobs require math, but also because of the demonstrated/developed math-related thinking skills that let people through the filter into higher-paying jobs.

Doing well in math, if it doesn't come intuitively, really rests on practice (similar to English-language spelling).  Math training also particularly helps understand statistics.  Statistical understanding is highly relevant for understanding the news AND the quantitative side of many different professions that are seen as more qualitative and personal (teaching, health care, marketing).

Now on to the college thoughts - does it matter, should you pay for tutoring, etc.  I decided it was worth paying for tutoring for my kids and you are probably seeing a lot of it in your environment.  It really would be better to get tutoring and get As instead of Bs. Think of extra math training as an investment in your child's skills and not as part of a college acceptance arms race and you might find it more worthwhile.

I think at the very top schools, Calculus attainment influences the curriculum rigor assessment but it also does really speak to the quality of the multi-year math skill development process a child has had.  So it can matter for humanities students vs. their competition at times.  It does obviously matter more for Engineering.  But the less selective the school, the less it will matter whether your child reaches Calculus.  And some now feel that AP Statistics is an okay substitution for AP Calculus AB for some fields of study.  All factors to consider re: positioning for schools from Top 15-50ish.

A simple reason to take Calculus AB in high school is so you will never feel "less than" other students/employees because you didn't reach a common high school math endpoint (in affluent communities).  Calculus AB would also prepare you for college-level calculus if you needed to take it for a major (business is a likely one).  Because practice helps so much, it would be ideal to have Calculus exposure before college if you will take it in college.[/quote]

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