Most importantly, AP Foreign Language, for a future Humanities/Social Science student, “signals” the same type of thing as AP Calculus does for future STEM major: pushing to a maximum level of rigor, even if it’s not required, and ability to use abstract thinking.
@calmdownkids I’m a big believer in doing what is best for the child. Not what is best for them to get into XYZ college. My D14 took precalc her h.s. Senior year. She got into every college she applied to. She tested out of college algebra and only had to take statistics in college, which she earned an A even though math was not her strong suit. She felt that stats was easy because it “represented the real world” to her. So I encourage you to go with your gut. No one knows your kid better than you do.
My son will graduate this yr with 3 math credits. His hs does not require 4 yrs of math to graduate and several college’s that he is looking at for landscape architecture only requires college algebra, which he took his junior year. I really thought he should take another math course but after talking with his counselor and colleges of choice that wasn’t the case. And he’ll probably clep out of college algebra.
So not that big of deal.
Most colleges seem to have appropriate level courses to fil quantitative reasoning requirements. I took a course in logic in college that I really enjoyed, and now that I look back on it, I’m thinking it was probably specifically for that reason - to fill a quantitative reasoning requirement. Here’s a list of courses that satify that requirement at Harvard - http://registrar.test.fas.harvard.edu/courses-exams/courses-instruction/quantitative-reasoning
Some of the Harvard course titles are amusing, and course descriptions don’t seem to require a lot of math background. Example:
Anyway - the point is that if there are courses at Harvard that “assume no mathematical background beyond high-school algebra” - that probably can be found at any college that doesn’t have the word “technology” or “engineering” in the school name — and it obviously also means that Harvard is somehow still accepting some undergrads who either didn’t have much math in high school or aren’t confident that they can remember any of it.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20848514/#Comment_20848514 lists a small number of US universities that require or expect calculus in high school for frosh applicants. It does not look like calculus as a requirement, recommendation, or expectation is that common for frosh applicants to US universities.
The OP may still have to be careful to check for schools which may want to see four years regardless of level of achieved, or a math course in senior year, or some such requirement or expectation even if the student has completed precalculus, as the OP’s student will in 11th grade. That is in addition to checking whether taking calculus or statistics in 12th grade may affect how much math the student will have to take for a university’s quantitative reasoning requirement.
@calmom, your Harvard example illustrates why I didn’t mention my D’s college curriculum in my original post. I was focused mostly on admissions considerations, because I assumed that many colleges still allow students to fill math/science gen ed requirements with courses that are less challenging than those taken by STEM majors (but still educational). I fondly remember the Physics for Poets class (not its official name) I took in college. But as @ucbalumnus and others earlier in the thread point out, we will need to look carefully at the core requirements for the colleges on her list before we make final decisions on her senior year schedule.
Yes of course you should look at each college’s requirements, both for admission and for graduation – but unless she is already in love with a particular school, you are pretty early in the game as your daughter is only a sophomore. So you’ve got a full year before you have to worry about senior schedule – at this point you are only mapping out a rough plan.
Honestly, it never occurred to me to look at any college admission requirements beyond our home state university. I figured that as long as my kids met those requirements, they would have plenty of schools to choose from, and I was right.
As a parent, the more important thing at this stage is to think about finances. Unless you are happy to pay full cost, you need to consider whether your family is going to qualify for need-based financial aid or whether you are going to want to steer your daughter to schools likely to offer significant merit money.
Getting into college is the easy part. Paying is the hard part.
^ I agree with the above. Run a few NPCs (your flagship, a private university and a private LAC your daughter likes).
Be ready for a shock.
In order to illustrate the growth in college costs between our time in college and today, imagine if the minimum wage had grown as much as public college costs between the early 90s and today: basic minimum wage woukd be $50 an hour.
Once you’ve recovered from the shock, start plotting how you can finance college (lots of good advice on this website).
I remember reading that 93 percent of Harvard’s freshman class entered having taken calculus already. So while I appreciate that HYPSM s hooks offer light quantitative courses, and I in fact took them, the entry requirements in practice do require math rigor
^The numbers vary from year to year; what is true is that a majority of Harvard freshmen took calculus in high school. We can assume that those who didn’t either had an academic spike (something they’re so extraordinarily good at that the general math background doesn’t matter) or a good reason (such as coming from a HS that doesn’t offer calculus, which MANY do not.)
However, OP made it clear her daughter doesn’t intend on applying to colleges with the selectivity level of HYP.
agreed. But USC isn’t that far behind anymore, with just 16% acceptance.
If she’s in 10th now and you’re worried about the math grade in 12th, now is the time to work on these skills, get her ready to have options.
How big a deal? You dont know how her interests might evolve by senior year. Nor how competitive her final targets will be, for kids from your state. Schools like USC and UCLA may like the picture she offers, but pick kids to admit who have the stronger rounding. Liking an applicant is just step one. Then they balance.
In some respects, you don’t want to wait to cross that bridge when you come to it, only to find it burned out.
The AP foreign language exam is NOT necessary to fulfill that requirement for all colleges. Why bother with it when other courses can be taken?
Because AP language courses are ones where you finally actually get to do substantial reading of literary texts as they were meant to be read? Because speaking a language well can get you opportunities you might not otherwise? I got a summer grant for senior thesis research studying low cost housing in London and Berlin. If I hadn’t taken AP French in high school I don’t think I’d have had time to learn two languages in college. I did archival research and talked to residents as well as photographing buildings.
Not every non STEM kid has to take a AP language courses. My kid who liked history took 3 history APs, but didn’t continue with Latin beyond Latin 4 junior year. He ended up studying Arabic in college. His major required four years of language study in a modern language or fluency. (If he’d known that he’d have taken a modern language BTW.)
Another reason that a student may not take calculus in high school is that the student’s math placement in middle school did not put him/her in the +1 or higher math track that allows taking calculus in high school.
Many high schools do not offer calculus, but it is unclear what percentage of students attend high schools that do not offer calculus. The usual number is 50% of high schools in 2014 do not offer calculus, but that is based on the set of high schools that includes continuation/reform schools, juvenile hall schools, etc… Such high schools may have small enrollments of low performing students, but each such high school counts as much as a larger general high school.
^Yes, but there are still quite a few “regular” high schools where few students ever make it to precalculus, so that calculus is not offered for lack of enrollment. I remember a poster who was very good at math and hit the highest level of math offered during his sophomore year (precalculus, which a minority of seniors took), so his lower-performing school thought it was exceptional enough they were willing to help him dual enroll at a local university where he could take calculus.
The situation you describe, where the student is not placed in Algebra1 in Middle School (and the parent doesn’t know to ask for it) and thus cannot take calculus at their HS even it’s offered, is likely a more common situation.
^I hope this question isn’t too far off topic, but I know a few very talented students in that situation, that for whatever middle school reasons had to start high school in algebra 1 and so will finish with precalc in 12th, at a good high school where math offerings go up to calc 3. How is that situation viewed by highly selective colleges looking for most rigorous/demanding - are such students at a substantial disadvantage if they are looking for top schools? (I have long imagined that the answer is yes)
Evergreen- the bottom line is evaluating a kid in the context of the HS. If a guidance counselor is ready to state that the kid took the most rigorous course of study available- then that’s the datapoint. There can be variations in scheduling (perhaps the kid finishing precalc is in an uber demanding foreign language sequence, plus AP history, plus a DE lit program?).
Too many individual variations to say. My own kids HS actively discouraged loading up on AP’s- they were tough and time consuming. So when a GC stated that a kid with 4 AP’s was taking the most challenging courseload- that was it. The fact that schools up the road allow 12 AP’s (plus some significant grade inflation, a la 12 Vals and 15 Sals) wasn’t relevant.
Re #96
For those highly selective colleges that use counselor recommendations, will the counselor indicate that those students chose the “most demanding” courses?
^right, I don’t know the answer to that (and I’m relieved that I worked hard to make sure my kids were appropriately squared away for math in middle school). The high school is very strict about math placement and it just seems to me that there is an element of math placement, middle school coursework, that is beyond the control of some kids. It just feels like there is an inherent conflict between “we won’t let you” and “you didn’t take the most demanding schedule.”