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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To the OP:

1.  I thought all Blair Magnet students were invited to attend the summer Functions camp.  If somehow that changed or you did not get an invitation, I would contact the magnet office.  It may be in small print on some document.

2.  Functions is literally the first class which was genuinely hard and clearly designed for students gifted in a particular area, in this case competition mathematics.  Competition mathematics is not all math, it's just a subtype of math achievement.  It's not theoretical math, it's not proofs, it's not engineering.  It's just this one aspect of mathematics that some people are really good at.  Like you, I was conditioned by years and years in school that the biggest issue was the barrier of getting in.  In this rare case, it's actually handling the work that is the limiting reagent. The reason the class is hard is twofold: lectures move very fast through complex concepts, and exams expect you to solve problems that have never been introduced in class.  Students actually have to produce original work in a timed exam.  For those of you with math background, this is a baby Putnam-type class taught at a High School level with a 90% grade expectation to get an A.

3.  All the replies here are not meant to discourage your child.  By all means, take the functions summer camp and then the class itself if invited.  Prepare your child that 1/3 of the kids transfer to precalc, and judging by the replies here probably closer to 1/2 should transfer.  Consider your child's and your family's goals out of Blair, your tolerance for not getting straight A's, etc.  Then you will rationally know what to do.[/quote]

I think point 2 is very misleading, to put it mildly. According to the functions teacher, the content covered in two semesters of this course is exactly the same as the content covered in three semesters of Magnet precalculus; and students will have less time in tests and quizzes compared to precalculus students. But students in magnet precalculus will not miss any content covered in functions. DC knows students not good in "competition math" - as you call it - but doing well in functions, as well as students that are good in "competition math" that are in magnet precalculus.

Competition math involves, in addition to other material, advanced concepts in number theory/combinatorics/geometry that are not covered in high school *core* math courses, even in the magnet; that includes functions.[/quote]

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