<p>SteveMA, that may be true in parts of the country or for some colleges. I don’t think it true for every place and every school.</p>
<p>I think rigor of courses is one of the most important thing a college looks at. If a student that won’t be a STEM major in college takes his high school’s hardest math class as a sophomore or junior and then no more, that is likely OK for many colleges. As long as that kid is then taking rigorous courses in history, english, art or whatever it is he wants to study in college and not just filling the time with study hall.</p>
<p>My D took her high school’s most advanced math class (calc AB) her junior year. She skipped AP Stat and declined her schools offer to pay for a CC calc 2 class during her senior year and took nothing. She was still accepted to fer first choice of Tulane, an out of state private as a premed chemistry major. She needed to take Calc 2 as a chem major and stats is advisable as a premed. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have them yet as far as admissions go.</p>
<p>Let kids be kids and don’t over think things.</p>
<p>Note that very few colleges and universities expect students to have taken calculus (or higher) in high school. Most* engineering and science degree programs are structured with the assumption that the entering freshman is ready for calculus (i.e. has completed precalculus in high school and does not need remedial math), and that starting in first semester freshman calculus will keep the student on track for graduation.</p>
<p>*Yes, there are a few exceptions like Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and WUStL engineering, but they are few compared to the much larger number of schools offering engineering and science degree programs.</p>
<p>^ and Princeton engineering I guess, since D’s GC said that was the only school that ever told her they won’t consider a kid who hasn’t completed **BC **calc.</p>
<p>My D took AP Calc BC as a junior and had no interest in taking AP stats (the only other math course available at her high school). She had no desire to try and commute to a over-enrolled CC for more math. She took AP Physics instead. She applied to several top 25 colleges (including HYPS) and was not rejected anywhere. Obviously didn’t hurt her at all to “only” take 3 years of math in high school.</p>
<p>We thought we were going to run into a problem with our DS. He finished a year of Alg2/Precalc at the local CC as an 8th grader. He was able to take a semester of Trig/Precalc and also Stats as a H.S. Freshman, and took AP Calc BC as a sophomore. Our state requires 4 years of math, but we were told that once he got to Calculus, it would count as having met the “terminal” course. He was interested in Engineering and so went ahead and did Independent Study with a a teacher at his HS for one year, and on-line for the other. Of course, when he started college, he only received actual credit for the Calc BC, but the university gave him a placement test in order to properly place him. Check and see if your state has a “4 year or terminal course” statement in the HS graduation requirement - and if he really does not intend to be a STEM major, colleges should not look down upon this (provided he does well enough on the AP exam.)</p>
<p>My kids were not STEM majors in college. They accelerated in math prior to college because that was the level they needed in order to be challenged. Here, acceleration would be taking Algebra in 8th grade. But my kids were the first kids at our MS to take Algebra in 7th grade and Geometry in 8th and so by junior year, they reached the final level of math offered at our HS, AP Calculus (which is pretty much AB). The MS courses in Algebra and Geometry (as well as their acceleration in foreign language and taking HS English classes in MS) all appeared on their HS transcript. They did not NEED to take beyond Calculus. My older kid chose to do a long distance course in AP Calculus BC through Johns Hopkins CTY during senior year just to continue in math. She never took math in college (at an Ivy), but her two years of Calculus in HS counted for the requirement she needed when she applied to grad school. My younger D followed in older D’s footsteps and also had AP Calculus in junior year. But she ended up graduating after junior year. She did not take math in college. Having reached the highest level of math our HS offers in junior year would have been fine applying to college with no math in senior year but older D chose to do it and younger D got into college without doing senior year.</p>