My son plans to apply as a Mech Eng major next year (he’s a junior now). He is in AP Calc AB this year (A- grade). Our high school has a pre-engineering certificate that he needs one more class to complete for grad. He still needs Aerospace Eng. But to fit it in his schedule for next year he’ll have to drop something else. He’s planning on AP Physics, AP US Gov, AP Eng Lang, Japanese 5/6, Digital Electronis (needed for pre eng certif), and AP Calc BC. Which would help him more at Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, Purdue, Georgia Tech level schools? The engineering certif? The third year of japanese? AP Calc BC? Thoughts please?
High school engineering courses and activities are more to help the student determine if s/he is interested in engineering in college and career; they are very unlikely to give the student subject credit or advanced placement in engineering major courses in college.
Calculus AB would give him a quarter or semester of advanced placement in math at most colleges; calculus BC would give him another quarter or semester of advanced placement in math at most colleges (assuming 5 scores). It is best to try the college’s old final exams of the courses that are allowed to be skipped to verify one’s knowledge and readiness to start in a more advanced math course.
Another year of high school Japanese could allow for starting in a higher level college Japanese course if he wants to continue studying the language. Note that college language courses cover material faster, so a year of high school language may correspond to a semester or less of college language.
AP Calc Bc is better. The aerospace class is unlikely to be real aero e. Most students won’t take a true aero e class until junior year of college
There’s really two questions, which will help him get in and which will be most valuable after he’s accepted.
I can’t speak for the holistic schools, but Cal Poly admits, competitively to each major, using a computer algorithm. Neither of those classes will impact his chances, as he’s already maxed the rigor score by having taken Calc AB. If he takes BC though, he could start in Calc III. That’s a big advantage at CP, if he verifies by taking old tests that he’s ready.
The link about the algorithm is below. It has changed for sure, as they eliminated ED and the SAT changed. For all we know, they might not use it at all anymore, but the admissions for the last few years seem to confirm that they are.
Wish him luck.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19077718/#Comment_19077718
From what I saw from when my son was in undergrad BC calc provided a solid foundation for progressing in engineering whether or not the student chooses to accelerate using AP credit.
He should take BC to be more competitive. But what other classes will he take, and which ones does he have a choice over?