Hi. My rising junior daughter asked me to ask this question on her behalf:
She is an Honors/AP kid with a 4.233 UW GPA (don’t know weighted yet; estimated to be 4.6ish.) All Honors except for math. She’s in our school’s “middle level” math, non honors, but one year more advanced than regular “college prep.” She’s actually quite competent at it, but given her rigorous course schedule, and her lack of interest in the STEM field, chose to stay non-honors. She’s had Algebra I, Algebra II and this year is taking Pre-Calc.
Her question is in regards to next year (her senior year) and what colleges would like to see: she has the option of AP Calc A/B or AP Statistics. She is interested in Psychology and other social sciences so she thinks AP Stats would be helpful but she wants to do the right thing regarding her applications and would take A/B if that would look better to colleges.
As of right now, she’s interested in schools like Vassar, Wesleyan and possibly Cornell (you all will hear from me next year when we’re trying to compile her college list, I’m sure; and we know they are all high reaches - just want to give you some perspective on the types of schools she’s trying to get into and what they might want to see in her coursework.)
Calculus AB is, in my opinion, a more useful and interesting course, though more rigorous. AP Statistics is almost never given credit in college, and is very different from college statistics. I would go with Calculus AB, but again, if she feels strongly about AP Statistics, its always better to do courses you like, especially since she’s a non-stem major.
My daughter took honors Alg 2, honors geometry, regular pre-calc, and was signed up for AP Stats as a senior instead of calc. She too is interested in psychology or PoliSci (not stem). Our private college counselor (worked as an AO at an Ivy for 10 years) said that AP Calc or even regular calc is seen as more rigorous, and therefore preferred, over AP Stats as a math course. As a result, D19 dropped AP Stats and enrolled in Calc last week since her schedule wouldn’t allow for both classes.
My daughter is a psychology major (rising senior) in college. She took both AP Calc AB (junior year) and AP Stats (senior year) in high school and scored 4 or 5 on both, but still had to take her university’s version of stats for psych majors as AP Stats didn’t cover everything they wanted her to know. That said, she said having taken the AP class did make the university-level class pretty easy.
Agree. The top colleges look for students to take calculus – it is considered the more rigorous class. And FWIW my D was a psych major and had absolutely no problem taking two (or three…I forget) semesters of statistics in college with no background in the subject.
In terms of rigor for college admission, calculus is probably seen as more rigorous by college admission readers. Also consider whether the choice will affect whether the counselor will mark “most demanding” for her course selections.
In terms of usefulness for a psychology major, check each college’s requirements for the major and general education and what it allows AP calculus and statistics to cover. Some students may want to take calculus-based statistics; in this case, calculus is more useful than statistics in terms of high school AP courses.
I would like to caution nudging a kid into studying something that may be too challenging for him/her. It could backfire.
My D has been a very humanity-leaning student. Although she was in all honor cal, chem, math and did well, (A, A-) in high school, she did not like math. In her senior year, she chose AP Stat instead of AP chem, cal or math. She dd well. It also did not prevent her from being accepted to a highly selective college withs humanity major. We know her strength and limitations. She might not have done well if we pushed her to study AP Calc.
Rphcfb
Completely agree with you. My daughter likes, but doesn’t love, math; however she does very well in it. She has 5 AP classes plus required theology as a senior. Didn’t want to push the AP Calc class since she doesn’t care for the teacher and doesn’t need the extra stress! Her counselor didn’t make it seem like taking regular calc would affect her “most demanding” class rigor identification.
I’m in agreement with @pepperJo , although the OP did not indicate if it was an option. But if available, and if taking it would not impact the GC’s rigor designation, non-AP calculus is a perfectly acceptable option.
But if the only options are AP Calc AB and AP Stats, I’m in the camp of choosing AP Calc.