Our school has policy to take Calc AB first before BC.

OP here. thanks for the helpful comments.

BC is mostly standard at his school. So yeah, the best path forward seems to take BC. Def makes sense to get a bit of a head start in summer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I might be the outlier, but I do not think Calc AB vs Calc BC is nearly as important for E School admissions as some folks here are claiming.

It matters A LOT that student takes Calc in HS, but any AP Calc is good enough. And yes, I know unhooked people who got into MIT and CalTech without taking either Calc BC or MV Calc at all.

Was BC not an option at their school? MIT says if BC is available they pretty much expect the kid to take it

MIT does not say that. What they say is that they expect a student to take the most challenging course available to them. At my kids school there were very strict requirements for accelerated math and if you hadn’t taken AB you weren’t allowed to take BC. That meant that AB was the top for many and they aren’t negatively impacted because it was out of their hands.

DP but how do you not see that these are literally the same thing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I might be the outlier, but I do not think Calc AB vs Calc BC is nearly as important for E School admissions as some folks here are claiming.

It matters A LOT that student takes Calc in HS, but any AP Calc is good enough. And yes, I know unhooked people who got into MIT and CalTech without taking either Calc BC or MV Calc at all.

Was BC not an option at their school? MIT says if BC is available they pretty much expect the kid to take it

MIT does not say that. What they say is that they expect a student to take the most challenging course available to them. At my kids school there were very strict requirements for accelerated math and if you hadn’t taken AB you weren’t allowed to take BC. That meant that AB was the top for many and they aren’t negatively impacted because it was out of their hands.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calc BC is the most desirable for engineering candidates. Many will have taken it in junior year and be in multivariable as seniors.

+++indeed, at least at ivies/top E schools

This s flat out wrong. A student will be evaluate In the context of what is normal and available at their high school.

Anonymous wrote:If your child is coming from a competitive high school and applying to T50 schools for engineering, he should be in BC. AB is an automatic ding for not having the “most rigor.” If he is worried, have him start working through a review book and using Kahn academy over the summer.

It depends on the path that they started on. If a student was not ahead going into high school hook it is not expected that they take BC.

Anonymous wrote:It generally depends on what is available and commonly taken by other applicants from your school but there are exceptions to every rule.

This is the general rule.

If your child is coming from a competitive high school and applying to T50 schools for engineering, he should be in BC. AB is an automatic ding for not having the “most rigor.” If he is worried, have him start working through a review book and using Kahn academy over the summer.

Anonymous wrote:Engineering? He’ll need to take BC. And get an A. All future engineering students at our school take BC, it’s fairly standard.

I believe it might commonly be the practice/experience at your specific school, but we clearly disagree that BC is always needed to get into a good E School.