advice on calculus sequence

Parents Forum
1

<p>my 9th grader is taking precalculus this year
it is time to sign up for next year's classes and i would appreciate your advice</p>

<p>he could take :
AP calculus AB
APcalculus AB and AP statistics
AP calculus BC</p>

<p>he was thinking of AP calculus AB but all his friends are taking BC in 10th grade
he gets A's in his classes but has to study to get them
his other classes next year are AP computer/AP US govt/spanish III/english 10/art</p>

<p>he plays varsity lacrosse and loves his science fair projects.
i was wondering what the rush is to get these math classes done.. maybe to take college courses... will that really help him for college admissions...
thanks for any light you could shed on this!</p>

2

<p>if he is good at math, he should take calc BC.
Calc AB is the first semester of Calc BC spread over entire school year. Taking BC after that will be very boring, and some schools will not allow it anyway.</p>

3

<p>Is he on a block schedule or is the AP course taught as a year-long course?</p>

<p>I don’t think you should think in terms of taking classes that will help your son in college admissions. Think of what will best suit his needs and his interests.
There is no rush to get the math classes done, and he could benefit from taking AB in 10th grade and BC in 11th grade. He would then be in a position to take Multivariable Calculus and Linear Algebra in 12th grade, which would be impressive to most adcoms.
But he may find the pace of AB too slow and may prefer taking BC which is AB plus 1/3 (so if he took BC in 11th grade, the pace would be really slow). He should talk to his math teacher. If he found BC too tough and fast-paced, could he easily drop back down to AB or would there be scheduling issues?
It is a good thing that he has to study for his As. If the materials were so unchallenging as to not compel him to study he might become an underachiever with bad study habits. That would be disastrous when he got to college.</p>

4

<p>For a bright math student such as your son, I suggest checking out what The Art of Problem Solving has to say. They discourage the very best young math students from jumping into calculus.</p>

<p>[The</a> Calculus Trap](<a href=“http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php]The”>http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Calculus.php)</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>I find this passage incoherent and not helpful to a student who is attending school (as opposed to being homeschooled). </p>

<p>

<br>
Precisely. And this is why the dangers of putting a 15 year old in a class of 19 year olds are way overstated, but the benefits of putting an advanced 12-year old in a class of 19year olds somehow escape the author.</p>

<p>

Very true, but it does not address the question of which class should a student take. It’s not an either/or proposition. Advanced math students can usually be found in their school’s math club. Those so inclined can take part in math competitions such as AMC/AIME. But they still need to go to class.</p>

<p>High schools vary in their requirements, but in ours, students have to show that they have exhausted the offerings of the school before they are allowed to take college courses (no online courses were allowed). The usual sequence of courses is pre-calc followed by Calc. As I posted above, there is no need to rush. But some students will chomp at the bit instead of feeling pressured. If the student were homeschooled, there might be different classes he could take that do not follow the usual sequence of pre-calc, calc, MVCalc, Diff Eqs and Linear Algebra. But the student is in high school. If it’s at all like ours, at least three years of math are required. So far, the student has only had one year.</p>

6

<p>S1 took AP Calc BC in 10th grade (his math teacher had advised taking AB first, then BC, as that was a possible track at his HS). He got a 5 on the AP exam. He then took AP Stat in 11th grade and Linear Algebra, Multivariate Calc and Differential Equations at our local Community College in 12th grade. He’s now a college junior, happy as a math major. He did a math REU last summer and is applying for other REUs this summer. He would like to get a PhD in math.</p>

<p>His experience may certainly not be definitive, nor completely transferable to yours. But at least it shows that for kids who are really into math, as he has been since age 5 or so, taking Calc BC in 10th grade can work out just fine.</p>

<p>Whether or not he takes BC in 10th grade, you should start thinking about what math he can take in 12th grade, as he may run out of math classes offered at his high school, and you will want to see what other classes would be available to him at local CCs or colleges.</p>

7

<p>Question: If he chooses calculus AB, does that end all opportunity for him to take additional calculus in high school? </p>

<p>At some schools, AB and BC are taught as alternatives, and there is no way for a student who completes AB to then take BC.</p>

<p>If this is the case at your school, he should probably take BC.</p>

<p>But if there is a mechanism by which a student can finish BC after taking AB, then AB might be a good idea. The material is taught at a slower pace, giving the students more time to learn it thoroughly.</p>

<p>Another question: Why is there no science in his schedule? That seems odd for a 10th grader, even one who happens to be accelerated in math.</p>

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<p>In our school, kids generally take Calc AB in 11th grade, then BC in 12th. They finish the BC material early and then get exposed to multivariate calc and diff eqs. </p>

<p>IMHO, many high school kids don’t fully absorb the material the first time around, and taking a little more time to cover the material and reviewing it the next year isn’t a bad idea. I knew a lot of kids in college (many years ago) who had calculus in high school but really didn’t know it as well as they should have and struggled as a result.</p>

<p>AP Stats is a good course but not as conceptually challenging as calc. Physics C is great in that it allows the students to apply the calculus they have learned.</p>

9

<p>Take APcalculus AB and AP statistics
I took them both together and feel they really complement each other</p>

10

<p>I agree with marite: AoPS is excellent, but the ideas posted in “The Calculus Trap” apply to an idealized setting where rigorous pre-calculus mathematics is available, and the reaction to “my city’s math club” is not “What?”</p>

<p>The city math clubs I’ve read about offer great experiences.<br>
But around here, there isn’t one.
For that matter, there’s not much of a “city” around here, either.
(We might have founded a club, but that’s another discussion entirely.)</p>

<p>Most students have to choose from the available offerings at their schools. This means, in a lot of cases, geometry that is not actually proof-based, and algebra and trig that are rather watered down. The options would be:<br>
a) home-school in mathematics only,
b) supplement normal-paced school mathematics with the depth AoPS would like to see (and which AoPS enables, through their classes, online material, and texts), but keep the student in normal-paced school mathematics, or
c) follow the school’s acceleration pattern. </p>

<p>The OP’s son has already taken path c) and in many school districts, I think that is actually the best option. Option a) is impossible for a lot of parents; I’m not even sure whether it’s “legal” in all states. Option b) I think, would relegate a student to “social-compliance” math classes, with almost no other students who were interested in math; also, it’s always awkward if the student understands math better than the teacher, which could easily happen on this route. Option c), the OP’s choice, is very likely the local optimum so far.</p>

<p>So, for next year, I’d advise based on the answers to a few questions: Does your son feel that he can keep up with his friends, in terms of math? If he has to study, no problem at all. If he has to struggle, that might be a problem. Does the same teacher teach both Calc AB and Calc BC, or are there different teachers? If different, then the Calc BC teacher would–in most districts–be the stronger, mathematically. Is this one of those “Calc BC has two hours of math homework a night and meets ahead of school every day at 7 am in order to guarantee the largest number of 5’s” type Calc BC classes, or is it taught sensibly (which can also yield plenty of 5’s)? Looking down the road, after your son finishes Calc BC, either in the coming year or next, what options for math will he have? Is there a university nearby where he can take more advanced classes? Or can he take online classes in higher-level math? Will the school facilitate this, or make it difficult? (Some do.)</p>

<p>Also, if your son loves science fair projects, what about a science, for next year? Computer science is not quite in the same group. Is your son taking biology, chemistry, physics, and computer science (in some order) as his sciences, or will he have an opportunity for AP science classes? And does that hinge on what he does now?</p>

<p>AP Stats is a perfectly fine course, and good background to have, but I agree that it’s not at the challenge level of AP Calc.</p>

11

<p>

This may be true for some, but for many students this practice makes the beginning of each school year unbearably boring.</p>

12

<p>My S took AP Calc BC in 10th and got a 5 on the exam… Then he proceeded to take online (from JHU CTY) classes in linear algebra and (this year) multivariable calculus. On line isn’t optimal even with a math professor father in the house but logistics prevented other options being used. Anyway, he received an A in linear algebra and is carrying same in mv calculus. He’s planning on being a science major(s), physics at this point.</p>

13

<p>I’d be very surprised if a kid who is doing well in Precalc in 9th grade wouldn’t be ready for BC Calc in 10th. In our school AB and BC are either/or propositions so it’s hard for me to get my head around stretching what should be a one semester course (AB or BC) over a whole year.</p>

<p>My younger son has ended up doing this by accident. He had a great pre-calc teacher who whizzed through the pre-calc material so fast that they got started on the AB material earlier than other classes and ended up taking a practice AB exam as their final. Since fall senior year is busy, he enjoyed sitting back in BC for the easy A, but his older brother would have been driven crazy by not learning anything new.</p>

14

<p>Calculus is hard. Very interesting but hard. You need to look at it in the context of his other classes and his interests. My son took Calculus AB as sophomore and is in Calculus BC as junior. Because it is a one-kid class, there is no repetition and lots of following tangents and applications, etc, so I don’t think it feels stretched out or repetitive. However, my son does not view himself as a “math kid”. Having said that, the school also had a kid who happily took Calculus BC as a one year class at an 8th grader and got a 5. So as always it is a question of the kid… Having said that, I wouldn’t do AP Statistics now, as it is “off sequence” and it will be hard to return to calculus sequence next year (unless, as someone suggested, you take it and Calculus AB).</p>

15

<p>Taking into consideration his other Ap courses on his schedule for next year I would go with the AP Calc AB as a 10th grader. Then for 11th AP Calc BC with AP Stats as an elective. Leave 12th for math at the local CC.</p>

<p>This based on the info you provided that he has to work for his grades and his taking other time-intensive APs while a varsity athlete.</p>

<p>Middle son followed a very close path (also varsity athlete) and was accepted early to MIT, CalTech and is now graduating from an ivy with a calculus-based degree (not math, math through def EQ was required as a pre-requisite) and has done well.</p>

<p>If your son was math all-the-time I would have recommended more math in less time but from your description he does not appear to be that way.</p>

<p>As a scholar athlete he needs to be able to maintain a good balance and enjoy what he is learning and accomplishing. That he will take with him no matter where he matriculates!</p>

<p>Kat</p>

16

<p>mathmom,
how is AP calc either AB or BC a one semester class? I thought they were usually a year long courses?</p>

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<p>^Sorry - what I meant is that they cover about 1 semester of college material. (Well BC covers two semesters in a year long course, and AB covers one semester in a year long course.)</p>

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<p>In our local public school district the high school schedule is on a 4 x 4 block. 4 year-long classes Fall semester and 4 year-long classes in the spring. Makes studying and taking AP exams (given in the beginning of May), fun!</p>

<p>Kat</p>

19

<p>I have a freshman that is taking BC. He goes to a competitive HS and older friends on his ARML team all went to BC right after pre-calc. BUT - nobody told him that they all did some kind of a calculus study prior to starting BC - be it online, studying at home with a parent or else. Thankfully, we had this idea of having DS audit a college Calc 1 class the summer before he started BC. Otherwise there is no way he would be holding an A in this course right now.<br>
So I would say have your son talk to his friends, ask them questions. In my son’s school it is more natural to take AB and then follow with BC - probably 90% of the kids in his class have done it taht way - it is much easier, less stresful, they will retain information much better. The grade will be better and grades do matter.
It was my son’s decision to go directly to BC but if we had to do it over again I would be much more resistive, would push for AB first. He is looking now at 3 years of taking math at the college - a difficult task, not only as far as scheduling goes, but what a logistical nightmare !</p>

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<p>This is very interesting…In the high school where my kids went (youngest graduated in '04) you were not allowed to take BC until you had taken AB. That was the sequence. period. Most kids took AP Statistics along with the BC calc. When D and S got to their respective colleges, they took one semester of what I think was called Calc 3, and a B or higher in that class, along with the 4-5 on the AP exams in HS earned them 3 semesters of college math credit.</p>