AP Calc AB or BC??

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

Hi, everyone. I’m new to the site, but I’ve looked through a lot of the forums on here before. I’m a junior in high school, and I’m in the middle of my course selection for my senior year. So far, here’s what I have:
AP English Lit
AP World History
AP Latin
2 semester long history electives
AP Calc AB or BC
I’m in an accelerated pre calculus class that covers the beginning topics of AP Calc AB, so I will be prepared to take BC, I’m not sure whether to take AB or BC because I’m nervous about getting a lower grade in BC than I would in AB. I’m nervous about taking AB instead of BC though because I don’t want it to hurt my chances of getting into a program/college that I might apply for next year. Right now, I don’t know what I want to major in/my desired career, but I want to keep my options open. Colleges I’m looking at:
American University
George Washington University
UCLA
USC
University of Chicago
Columbia
Penn
Georgetown
Loyola Marymount University
Pepperdine University
NYU
I think I might be interested in Business, but I’m not entirely sure. I know that Wharton at Penn really looks for applicants who take the highest math class they can, so if I decide that I do want to go into business, I don’t want to count myself out of Wharton by taking AB. You know what I mean? I think that Penn is my first choice, although I don’t know if I’d apply to Wharton or CAS, and I think I have a decent/good chance of getting in. I have good extracurriculars, leadership positions within them, a 3.7 GPA at a rigorous and prestigious private school in philly (for reference, average accepted at Penn is 3.6, avg at Yale is 3.9, 3.95 at Harvard), I’m pretty sure I’ll have great recs, and I’ve got a 34 ACT. Thank you for any input!

2

The likelihood of you getting a substantially lower grade in BC than AB is pretty small IMO, and really, is that really a reason to choose a course? Challenge yourself and take BC. You would need BC or the equivalent course at Penn for a Wharton degree anyway, so why not try to knock it out of the way now. If you have a decent teacher and invest some time into the material (or Khan Academy), you’ll be fine. Good luck.

3

That’s a good point. Thank you!!

4

Yeah, go for BC. It’s not much more than AB (the AP exams for both have a lot of the same questions). If you do well, you can get out of more classes in college than if you just took AB.