Hello guys, I am an 8th grade student and I am doing Geometry right now, and I have been debating if I should do Algebra 2 over the summer so I can do Pre-Cal in freshman year. I would be 3 years ahead, would that look good on my resume or college application? Here is some information about my school. I need some help about finding some information on summer courses for Algebra 2 where I could get FULL credit for it. If you could help me that would be great. Do I have to go to Glacier Peak over the summer(If you don’t know could you help me find out, I couldn’t find information on this)? Or do I go to a Community College for the course (If so please list the college and location, and website link.) Thank you guys for helping so much!
If I were you first go talk to your current math teacher. And then go to the administration of your high school, at my school you can take Algebra 2 over the summer and advance to pre calc reg but not honors and you can typically take the math course at the district-wide summer school. Some kids found approved honors courses such as Stanford online high school so they could take Algebra 2 honors and skip to pre calc honors. First go to administration of the local high school and they will give you advice
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Does your school offer testing for a course? In my school you can take the final exam for the course, and if you get higher than a B on the exam, you receive credit for the course. If that isn’t possible, I would see if you can receive credit for online Algebra 2. If you understood Geometry and Algebra 2, it won’t be that difficult. I was in the same situation as you were, but with a shorter time period. I decided to self study Algebra 2 w/Trig in two weeks (with only a textbook). I made an A on the test and moved to Pre-calculus without taking the class. Wasn’t too hard.
Best of luck!
You need to talk to your guidance counselor, who may need to talk to the hs guidance counselor about what your options are. Schools differ a lot in this respect so you have to find out your own school’s policy. For instance, our school doesn’t allow students to just take an exam and get credit for a course. Unless you are the sort of student who loves to read math books on your own and finds math classes trivially easy, I don’t think it’s advisable to do this–the material in algebra 2 is pretty important and you don’t want to be shaky on it later on. Which courses will be acceptable to your school, whether you need a course or can self-study, is all determined by your school, so we can’t tell you that. You also should be aware that many alternative offerings may not be at the honors level, so you need to be careful what you sign up for. You also need to find out your school’s policy on credit, and decide whether you need credit. Our school doesn’t give credit for random courses you take outside. They would allow you to skip the class though, but sometimes they would allow you to skip a class without an outside course, if you make a convincing enough case.
If your HS Algebra II class includes trigonometry (specifically trigonometric identities and the unit circle), your HS’s precalculus class may be easier to skip. Precalculus often has little content that isn’t either a review/extension of content in Alg II or a preview of the first couple chapters of calculus. As mathyone said, you’ll need to see if there is an approved path for skipping over a math class.
Note that sometimes you end up with the grade you get on the test to get out of a class on your HS transcript. So, if you got an 80-something% on the test and passed, you would have a B on your transcript.