What it takes to get that box checked is my #1 question for the school’s college counselor when we have our first Jr-yr meeting next month, a couple months prior to Sr-yr course selection. I’m not terribly optimistic that I’ll get a clear answer. The math dept used to require AB as a prereq to BC and now allows students to go from honors precalc directly to BC, but discourages that choice.
@calmdownkids Interestingly, the school now requires calc if the student also wants to take AP stats Sr yr, as a co-req, I guess so that advanced students aren’t avoiding calc by choosing stats.
The issue is at least partly with the colleges because their admissions websites often use the specific language “most demanding.” What I find irritating about that question’s presence on the counselor form is that the college should be able to judge from the transcript coupled with the School Profile.
I think the “most demanding” designation is one motivation behind the race in some schools to rack up numbers of APs.
^Truly, adcoms are able to judge, it’s their job and they can recognize a strong transcript that reflects personal interests and academic strength, v. cookie cutter. And yes they have standards for what “most demanding” means. They aren’t into the AP race and know some hyper competitive schools have standards pushed by the local context.
Compounding the problem is the proliferation of calculus courses. The college board reports more than 432K students took an AP calculus exam last year (308K for AB, 124 for BC). They estimate that tens of thousands of additional students took the AP calculus course, but didn’t take the exam, for whatever reason. And there are also schools that teach non-AP calculus, so those students also probably didn’t take the exam. In sum, very many applicants have some type of calculus on their transcript.
Math is somewhat like foreign language in that colleges may consider the level achieved rather than just the number of years. 3 years of math finishing with precalculus (as the OP’s kid will have) is better than 3 years of math finishing with algebra 2, for example. For the former student, a fourth year that is calculus or statistics is probably nice to have for many colleges, but for the latter student, a fourth year that is precalculus is more likely to be necessary in order to avoid the need for math remediation in college.
@MYOS1634, my D will potentially have all the APs you mention except AP English Lang, which isn’t offered (though there is talk that it might be soon). And as mentioned earlier, if she takes math senior year it’s likely to be Statistics. Would love to get her interested in women’s colleges or SLACs, but so far she is focused on wanting to be at a larger university. @evergreen5, I understand if the Ivies or MIT or Stanford or any school with a 10% or less acceptance rate tosses someone in the Reject pile after reading the application because “most demanding curriculum” isn’t checked. I think it’s misguided for colleges who are below that level to toss aside an application for that reason alone.
STEM-oriented HS kids still have to take 4 years of English and Social Studies to graduate. Why shouldn’t there be a similar Math and Science requirement for non-STEM-oriented HS kids?
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We are also considering having her take Statistics senior year, and she will be taking AP Macroeconomics. <<
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If she really does not want Calc 1, I think she should definitely take AP Stats along with AP MacroEcon. I would not totally skip Math Senior year. I mean, Math is literally half of the SAT score. It’s kind of a big deal to colleges.
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If your D will have taken Biology, Chemistry and Physics, I don't think it is essential to take a 4th year of science unless she is trying for the tippy top colleges. She might consider a class like AP Environmental Science in senior year though. <<
@calmdownkids The competitiveness of selective schools at a level not far beneath HYPSM in ranking would still point to 4 yrs of math and often “most demanding” or its equivalent is mentioned. I imagine the reaches you have listed are in this category - whatever schools are on the final list, I’d look closely at websites. For example, USC:
What is necessary to be competitive is less clear lower down in rankings. For Wisconsin, “most” admitted students will have 4 yrs of math, which a student who has taken up through precalc would have satisfied. Interestingly, at Wisconsin, for the minimum math requirement (3 yrs):
@Wien2NC, STEM kids (and all kids) at my D’s high school are only required to take 3 years of Social Studies, and in fact the curriculum is set up in a way that you have to double-up on Social Studies senior year one semester to get 4 full years. But I see your basic point–STEM kids should be exposed to humanities/social sciences and non-STEM kids should be exposed to math/science, especially since they might change their mind about whether they are headed down a STEM or non-STEM path.
There is no APES at her school, but if we take 4 years of science her path is pretty clear (Physics as a junior and AP Bio as a senior), and I’m far less worried about that than I am about the math.
Can you list what classes she’s sure to be taking, as well as what classes she may take wrt to math and either science or another class?
For a nonstem kid it’d be more important to have further exposure to the broad academic field of interest (ie;, doubling up English/History/Social studies) than to take AP Bio.
If she had Precalculus she’ll be fine with Statistics.
(Even UWisconsin, which is quite specific and doesn’t consider stats, does consider that having taken Precalculus fulfills the requirement).
Didn’t think folks would want to dig this deep, @MYOS1634. Here’s her schedule for the first three years, leaving out her nonacademic classes such as Choir, Drama, and PE:
Freshman: Accelerated English, Geography (one semester), Accelerated Geometry, Accelerated Biology, French 2.
Sophomore (in progress): Accel. English, AP World History, Accel. Algebra II, Accel. Chemistry, French 3.
Junior (proposed): Accel. English, AP US History, Accel. Precalc/Trig, Accel. Physics, French 4.
Senior year gets more complicated because there are so many options, but certainly AP English Lit., AP Government (one semester), and AP Macroeconomics (one semester). For the three or four slots she has left (four if she doesn’t take Choir as a senior, three if she does), she would choose from AP French, Accel. Calculus, Statistics/Discrete Math, AP Bio, AP Psychology, and AP European History. Of those courses AP European is the least likely to be actually offered based on past enrollment trends. And as stated in earlier posts I heavily lean toward Statistics if she is going to take math.
Senior year is when a student starts indicating academic interests. The optimal senior schedule for her broad intended academic field would include AP Lit, AP ECON/gov, Ap French, AP Euro, statistics/discrete math.
Since it’s sophomore year you still have time to coordinate with other parents to ensure AP Euro is offered on behalf of all the kids who want to apply to non stem majors and are hoping either for honors college at the flagship or very selective universities. It could even be offered in rotation with one section of AP World History?
(You can explain the pta that AP euro is a core AP, whereas AP econ/gov is more a complement social science.)
Taking choir all four years can be good at some colleges that offer stackable merit scholarships to musicians, from St Olaf to Concordia Moorhead to Luther.
“STEM-oriented HS kids still have to take 4 years of English and Social Studies to graduate. Why shouldn’t there be a similar Math and Science requirement for non-STEM-oriented HS kids?”
Not all high school students are going to college. Having to take a fourth year of math or science could prevent them from graduating at all. Our school district only requires 4 years of English to graduate, math, science, and social studies are all 3 years.
@MYOS1634, Econ and Govt. are required to graduate (not at AP level of course, but in some form), which is why I’m sure they will be offered and less sure about AP European. I’m not sure the parents have that much influence in my school district anyway, but I’m guessing there aren’t that many kids who want to take AP European. I wouldn’t mind seeing her take a fourth year of choir, given that singing and musical theater are her primary EC interests, and so she has a break from all the academic classes as a senior. And good point, @oboemom65–this forum seems heavily weighted toward extremely smart college-bound kids, but the schools have to consider everyone.
^Yes, I understand, and so do Adcoms.
If you make enough parents aware of the importance of AP Euro for non-STEM kids, there may be sufficient demand for the class to be full and thus offered?
If she doesnt have AP Euro, does your school offer senior seminars in History, English, Philosophy…? Or is Dual Enrollment (also called PSEO, CIS, or Running Start) a possibility?
I think some of the decision can be based on your D’s performance relative to her high school. Ultimately that is the context in which she will be judged. Does your high school have tracks? If so the most selective colleges will favor those in the highest track. Doesn’t mean she has to take AP Calculus, but I would be very wary of giving up math altogether. Science may be a different animal depending on what 3 sciences she already has. But since she is only a sophomore, you have a lot of time to figure it out. With regard to gpa, many colleges will recalculate it. So if your D takes choir instead of math, a lot of schools won’t even use the choir grade to compute her gpa.
@MYOS1634, not sure other parents will see the importance of AP Euro, considering the kids of most of my target audience will already be taking 2 1/2 years of AP Social Studies, but I will consider lobbying them when the time comes if my D is interested in taking it. No senior seminars are available.
If she takes Statistics, that course is labeled as both honors level and dual-enrollment. Not much in the way of other dual-enrollment opportunities for students of her ilk (those courses are mostly designed for kids who want credit at our local CC).
I think most people on this thread have recommended she take statistics not calculus. I’m not going to argue that someone who has dyscalculia should be forced to take more math than they can handle.
I’m happy if high school graduation requires (barring LDs) math through Algebra 2, but that pre-calc is an expectation for most college bound kids as nearly all colleges have some sort of math requirement for graduation and it would be doing kids a disservice to have them abandon math only to discover there is some sort of quantitative reasoning course they are ill-prepared for because they were allowed to drop math too soon.
AP foreign language- not familiar with it. Why bother with it unless continuing, especially if there are other classes one can explore and learn more from. Four years of foreign language can count- and the middle school years count for both that and math. Think in terms of HS level courses completed, regardless of when taken.
btw- mathematics is not arithmetic. Numbers get less attention the farther you go; the abstract ideas are paramount.
I expect the years required in different subjects is strongly influenced by a combination of state requirements and requirements for college admission (typical colleges, not HYPSM…), rather than what makes sense to us or what is equitable. For example, I live in CA. The CA DoE sets minimums of 2 years Math, 2 years Science, 3 years English, and 3 years Social Studies; while CA public colleges have higher minimums of 3 years in Math and 4 years English. The two HSs nearest to me are in good neighborhoods with an extremely high rate of students attending college, so they choose to set graduation requirements as the maximum of CA DoE and CA public colleges, which is 3 years Math, 2 years Science, 4 years English, and 3 years Social Studies.
@wis75 A sufficient score on an AP foreign language exam can, at some colleges, satisfy the college graduation requirement for foreign language (and of course, like other APs, may show rigor for selective college apps).