<p>"Miami: it is not an incorrect statement for my region. My kids used college textbooks for about half of their high school classes and learned things in AP Chem, AP Physics, AP Calc BC, etc. that my DH (a chem engineer), and our well-educated technical friends (in IT and sciences) from India didn’t learn until college.</p>
<p>However, their preparedness in math was not up to what it should have been, IMO. "</p>
<p>-I do not understand this post at all. One cannot do well in Chem. without good math background. The first thing to check if a kid falling behind in Chem class is his math.<br>
The other points to consider is that I was talking about the easiest science class in UG, not at all weed out killer Bio that all pre-meds had to take (even with “5” in AP Bio exam in HS), and yes very good number of valedictorians from private HS’s did not survive in pre-med track after this class. Nope, Chem. was very easy with great American (American English Speaking, no accent) prof. And the reason for kids not doing well was not enough of JH and HS math background. There are no other reasons for 40 of them being in SI sessions.
D. has also used college book for her Honors Bio at her prep. HS before she took AP Bio (“5” on exam), neither of them helped much with first college Bio, which re-freshed AP matrial in first 2 weeks and then moved on to new stuff, although college class used exactly the same book. It is the matter how they use book, not which book they use, I guess. D’s UG had many OOS kids also, their college prep. seemed not depend too much on thier region, except international kids being prepared much better, just proving my point. Even D’s private prep. had kids from other countries, school knew that they had to be placed higher in math and sciences, despite language problem. Some of them were from Europe, others from China.</p>