Anonymous wrote:A pretty typical four-year math track in an American high school would be Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, and then Trigonometry (or a series of math classes that integrate all three topics into each class). What the website means is that they are looking for applicants who have gone beyond this standard four-year progression. It does not necessarily mean taking more than four math classes in high school - your child may have taken some of those classes in middle school, and/or may take accelerated versions that complete the progression in fewer than four years. The key part is where they say "We would highly recommend taking math your senior year and advancing through pre-calculus or calculus, if available." They want to see your child taking at least through pre-calc or calculus (depending on your school's offerings), and they want to see math at a high level through your senior year (no completing your graduation requirements early because you took math in middle school and then skipping it entirely after that).

If it's not clear what this means in the context of your specific high school's offerings, then you should the guidance counselor how they would interpret/apply it to the available course offerings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am reading the website under "what we look for" and it says "competitive students will often have earned credit beyond four years of math" How does one take more than 4 years of math in high school? Do they mean double up, which guessing no bc hard to take math levels concurrently since they build? Do they mean one should count middle school math? It also specifically says AP stats doesn't count as math. Does my humanities kid have to take BC calc to be competitive?

There are kids with all kinds of special circumstances.

But I think that, generally, Calculus AB is the minimum level of math these days for a kid at a T100 type of college who plans to major in STEM or other majors that involve math.

I think kids who want to be hot shot stem majors at a T30 need to go in with at least a 4 on Calculus BC. If all they have is a 4 on Calculus BC, they should go in with humility and start with Calculus AB, not even think they had a good Calculus AB class.

Nowadays, with all the access kids have to Khan Academy and the like, just having Calculus BC and nothing more advanced, even through self study, is a sign a kid isn’t really that interested in math and not all that well-prepared for doing math at a top-level.

Even in the 1980s, good math students from East Coast schools all had a minimum of Calculus. Kids who have the internet and can’t learn differential equations or liberal algebra on their own, for fun, are not going to have fun being math or physics majors at Wisconsin.

Anonymous wrote:I am reading the website under "what we look for" and it says "competitive students will often have earned credit beyond four years of math" How does one take more than 4 years of math in high school? Do they mean double up, which guessing no bc hard to take math levels concurrently since they build? Do they mean one should count middle school math? It also specifically says AP stats doesn't count as math. Does my humanities kid have to take BC calc to be competitive?