Reply to Which high schools allow 9th graders to take AP Statistics?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My son is already taking Honors Algebra II this year in 8th grade and will take AP Pre-calc BC.  Has anyone else's child taken AP Stats in 9th grade?

**This is the AAP message board, no need to respond that 9th graders shouldn't be taking AP classes or to "just let them be a kid".  I'm looking for advice from other parents with kids on similar math paths as my son.[/quote]

My son took Statistics after Algebra 2. In retrospect, it’s not a good idea, much better to take it after Calculus. I’m sure some people will jump in and say AP statistics is algebra based, but to really understand the fundamentals you need calculus, otherwise the entire course is a mechanical application of formulas.

There are also some concepts covered in precalculus for binomial distributions, combinations and permutations, inverse functions etc.

The AP exam is challenging, it isn’t easy to get a 5, you need to know the material well. In a sense AP Statistics is harder than AP Calculus because it requires a deeper knowledge of material, while most of calculus theorems are straightforward to derive, interpret and apply.

Another point, good statistics teachers are very rare, the one my son had was abysmal, would literally ask for a conclusion in a very specific rote memorization format, all while she never defined in the course what a probability distribution is.

It’s possible to take AP Stat in 9th but not advisable.[/quote] knowing calculus while taking AP stats won't magically give a student a deeper understanding unless the course is specifically taught from a calculus based viewpoint, which AP stats isn't.[/quote]

Knowing Calculus will actually give students a deeper understanding since it underlines any concept in continuous probability distributions which is half the class.

In practice the “algebra based” course will teach that the probability is “area under the curve” that can be found in a table. There goes the “you don’t need calculus” argument. To get a sense of the rationale, you can just spend a little time on the many excellent resources on YouTube that do a good job of presenting these concepts.

If your idea of a fun math class is rote memorization of formulas and the [b]situations where they should be applied, [/b]then you can get by with algebra only.
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I think you mean "toy situations where they can be misapplied". 
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Ok bro, you’re not him.[/quote]

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