Reply to 9th grade math

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "9th grade math"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wish it didn’t matter, but I have toured over 15 colleges with my junior, from JMU to Tufts, and almost everywhere has mentioned wanting to see calculus in high school. Most engineering programs require it. And every admissions director has said that your course load is more important than everything else.

As a non- math person who never went beyond trig in high school myself,  I would love to agree with the posters that say it doesn’t matter for college admissions, but it’s simply not true. It won’t necessarily alter the course of your career plans, but it most definitely alters the colleges and programs you have access to. [/quote]

Whether or not you have Calculus may affect which colleges you can get acceptance into an engineering program for, that is true. But it doesn't mean you can't go to other colleges, or start in one major and then apply to transfer later. It might mean an extra year of college, or some summer courses to catch up. It might mean MIT is not going to accept that particular child. All of that is just fine. It is most important that the child grasp the material. MIT will be an option for grad school, if it's a fervent desire even if it wasn't in the cards for undergrad.

The problem with how all this is laid out to kids is it's giving them the message that doing anything slightly later, or slightly slower, than the absolute best or fastest rate is failure and their lives are over. That's garbage and adults really have to stop spewing it. Algebra I as a 9th grader is fine. There are plenty of colleges, even selective colleges, that will accept such a student. There are STEM programs that will accept such a student. The future remains bright and wide open.

FWIW, I majored in a STEM field and had calc in HS. I retook calc in college because I didn't think my foundation was strong enough. That set my science path back a semester. It was no big deal. I chose to take a heavier load in a future semester to "catch up" but I could have taken a summer course or lengthened my time in college instead. No one shunned me. I earn a good living. I am not branded with my "failure" to grasp calc perfectly my first time through. Plenty of kids in college STEM tracks find they need to repeat classes. To the point where sometimes schools have gatekeeping courses that if you fail more than N times, you are no longer allowed to pursue that major. Stop stressing out 14 year olds. Stress them out when they're 19 and HAVE to pass that 300 level class this time or figure out what they're going to change their major to.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics