AP Calc or Other Opportunities?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hey all,

I was planning on becoming a CS major a year ago (didn’t really look into anything and just assumed I would like CS for some reason), so I planned to take Honors Algebra 2 in my junior year (current), Honors PreCalc this summer, and then AP Calc BC in my senior year (this fall).

I’m a Canadian but I’m doing fully-online school through an accredited American program.

I recently switched my major plans, and am applying to departments that I don’t think require AP Calc (not sure, to be honest. I need to check this still). So, I am wondering… Is that time spent on a summer class (precalc) and AP calc worth it? I have a wide range of courses I can take, including “Concepts of Engineering and Technology (sem),” and “Introduction to Manufacturing: Product Design and Innovation (sem).” Both of these electives are extremely pertinent to my major.

Here is my proposed schedule. The only change is the deletion of AP Calc in senior year and no summer PreCalc (moved to senior year).

G9: Simple pass or fail in each core subject.

G10: World History, Geometry, World Literature, Biology, CS and Coding, Entrepreneurship, Business
G11 (current): AP Psych, Honors Alg 2, AP English Lang and Comp, Chemistry, AP CS Principles
Summer: ASL 1
G12: AP Economics (both), Honors PreCalc, AP Lit and Comp, Physics, ASL 2, Exploration in Media Arts, AP CS A.

GPA: near 4.0 UW, straight As in my AP courses (not sure how to calculate weighted gpa tbh).
Majors: See list below.

American:
Stanford- Product Design
MIT- Management with Entrepreneurship and Inno. Minor likely cancel
Brown- Behavioral Decision Sciences: Early Decision

Babson- Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Design
Northeastern- I love so many of their majors. Most notably Business and Psych, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and maybe a CS major.
U Washington- Industrial Design
Penn State University Park- Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship

ASU- Industrial Design
U San Fran- Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Chapman- Behavioral and Computational Economics
Western Washington University- Industrial Design

Canadian:
Waterloo- Global Business and Digital Arts
McGill- Entrepreneurship
Simon Fraser- Interactive Arts, Technology and Business

The options are pretty much:
-Stick with summer Honors Precalc and Senior year AP Calc BC
-Add electives (mentioned above) senior year, cancel art class, stick with the option above.
-Don’t take AP Calc and instead take AP Physics or/and electives.

Or some combination of this-- I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions! Please let me know what you think :wink:

Thank you!

2

As I have said many times on this site, and probably said on one of your earlier threads, core courses should not be sacrificed in order to take electives.

No US college has an expectation that any applicant take HS courses like Concepts of Engineering and Technology or Introduction to Manufacturing: Product Design and Innovation. That’s what college is for. Whether your summer is better served forgoing academics entirely for an internship or some other activity is a different question.

That said, no US university requires Calc BC. A very small handful (which I’ll let you research), like MIT or Harvey Mudd, request or require some calculus (can be regular calc or AP Calc AB), but be aware that most applicants to T20 schools, regardless of intended major, would have had calc in HS.

3

My Canadian friend:

You are taking some good courses but you are not taking MIT/Brown/Stanford level courses.

Is Calc AB an option?

I think you need to look at your GPA/SAT and see what is realistic for college selection

4

How does this sound:

Summer: Honors PreCalc, ASL 1
Grade12: AP Economics(both), AP English Literature and Lang, AP Physics, AP Calc AB, ASL 2, Both those electives

I removed an art credit and AP CS and replaced it with AP Physics and both electives. I kept AP Calc, but did AB instead of BC.

@skieurope

Thanks for the information! I can’t say I’m not surprised; many colleges that I’ve been looking at have some disclaimer, suggesting they care more about how I far I pursue my interests in the classroom-- especially in senior year-- rather than the pure intensity of the classes. Ideally, wouldn’t it be both? I don’t mean to question your judgment, you clearly know more than me here; however, I just can’t quite fully trust that ignoring two classes for my designed major is going to help me. I know that isn’t really what you were saying, but it would be the result.

Also, it wouldn’t quite be entirely. I would still be taking ASL.

@bopper I’m always open to suggestions! I can take AP Calc AB or BC in my senior year, I just have to do a summer class to satisfy the prerequisite. I’m generally pretty fine with that, and I think it would help me justify my lack of major summer adventures (I’m not doing research or internships or anything like that afaik).

I have a different thread on my college selection and most people say this list is pretty reasonable. I am definitely open to taking more difficult courses! I’m just not sure what :wink:

Keep in mind, I likely won’t apply to MIT and I don’t have many expectations (if any, lol) for Stanford. I am doing ED at Brown because I love everything about that school-- it’s a near perfect match with great academics. Also, Brown would be worth the money when compared to something like Northeastern, where I wouldn’t be 100% sure.

Any suggestions are appreciated. Feel free to build me something here that I can use to apply to Brown with confidence (to clarify, I obviously don’t mean confidence that I will be accepted).

5

Absolutely true!

Do you need some kind of fine arts requirement to fulfill your graduation requirements? I ask because it was a requirement at my D’s HS.

Have you taken US history? I know you are an international applicant but attend an American online school. That should have been an option?

If Brown is the goal they say they want to see at least 2 years of history, including US history: https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/ask/preparing-for-brown

You are also missing year 3 of foreign language which is the minimum for Brown. Note in the above link that they specifically say they prefer 4 years of FL.

Have you considered reaching out directly to the admissions folks at Brown over the summer to discuss your educational situation? I wonder if they would be able to give you a better sense of how important meeting their minimum course requirements would be? If not having the 3 years of FL on your transcript would automatically disqualify you for consideration, that would be a good thing to know now before submitting an ED application. You never know, they may also tell you that they are more flexible for international applicants. Either way, it would good information to know directly from Brown admission vs all of us on CC.

6

@FakeName1332 " I am doing ED at Brown because I love everything about that school-- it’s a near perfect match with great academics."

I love your enthusiasm. I hope you can convey it in your application.

Keep in mind that everyone of the 38,000 people that apply to Brown share your view. The ones that get accepted however don’t focus on the school works for them and is a perfect match from their perspective.

Instead you will have to offer a compelling argument as to what you will add to the Brown community. What makes you unique in the context of Brown versus thousands of other kids? It can’t be hyperbole or wishful but instead needs to be specific, thoughtful and in many ways proven when making the case via you application (similar at all elite schools).

How well do you really know the school and how will you impact it?

Good luck and I hope this starts you contextualizing what it really takes.

7

@momofsenior1

That’s a dagger. I know my chances are small (even smaller since you mentioned that), but I’m still going to apply and hope they evaluate me in a different way. If it makes the situation better, I won’t be even moderately disappointed if I get rejected. It’s just a ‘Hail Mary’ pass I want to throw.

Thank you for the advice!! I’ll email them as soon as possible with all this information.

@Nocreativity1
With all due respect here-- and I don’t mean to come across as ungrateful in any way-- I would like to refrain from talking about my chances/ECs/etc. on this thread. I have so many posts where I go into more depth about these specific topics, and I am really content with the amount of information I received.

I do however really appreciate you mentioning how those 38k people share my view. That was a real eye-opener. It won’t affect my decision to ED, but it has lowered my expectations even more, which is actually a big positive.

I’m not too sure how to summarize this, but I’ll try: I want to do everything I can in my curriculum to help me get into schools like Brown, but I don’t plan on being compared to any other applicant-- I’d lose instantly. Instead, I want to rely on my really unique situation (not really involved in this thread, fyi) to potentially compensate for other areas of my application where I am weaker. Will this be enough compensation? Will they be turned off by my story? I don’t think anyone knows this answer except for Brown’s admissions. With all that said, I want everyone to rest assured-- I do not have any real expectations for me and Brown. I just want to have the opportunity to be considered!

Thank you for the comment;)

8

Yep! That’s why I think it would be a good idea to reach out to their admissions directly.

Getting back to the question about courses, if you need the fine arts course to graduate and US history, take those instead of the electives you mentioned. As our wise moderator stated in post #1, you don’t need those electives and it would be a poor choice to choose them over a core course requirement.

Absolutely take calc. At the level of school you have on your list, almost all other applicants will have it. It doesn’t have to be BC, but at least AB.

9

Let me know what you guys think of this:

Summer- Honors Precalc and ASL 1

Grade 12- AP English Literature and Composition, AP Economics, AP Calc AB, Honors Physics, Exploration in Media Arts (required art credit), Concepts of Product Design, Product Design.

I just removed AP CS, changed calc to AB, added Honors Physics, and added both electives.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated. It’s somewhat time sensitive. I’m willing to rearrange my schedule a lot. I don’t really mind what courses I take, to be quite honest.

Maybe cancel out some of those electives and take AP CS or AP Physics or AP Calc BC? not sure!

10

Where is ASL 2?

I still think you are shy a history credit for some of the schools on your list.

11

OP sorry for conflating your threads and the desired content. Will defer to others who are more informed about Brown. Good luck and GO BRUNO!

12

@momofsenior1 My apologies, I forgot to include ASL 2 in senior year.

I will contact all my schools about History. The colleges on my old list had no issues with it.

I would replace AP Economics with AP USH, if that is needed. I just now contacted Brown and we will see their thoughts on college admissions.

@Nocreativity1 My apologies-- I over-stepped. Any information regarding my college admission process is helpful for me. I have the time, and I certainly need the help considering I am so distant (both literally and mentally) from the process. I sent you a PM if you would like to discuss further; if not, I understand!

13

I don’t think it’s worth it. Calculus is calculus everywhere, but HS non-AP electives are probably not at the same level as college classes, and you’ll have to do this again in-depth in college. I might be wrong about these specific courses but especially “Concepts” class sound like just a very vague intro for students who are not sure what they want to major in.

14

Definitely calculus, AB is 100% fine.
Keep physics.
The two electives are not necessary. Only take them (or one of them) if you have all your core classes.
Is there any way you could take another foreign language at a college and get level 1 over the summer, level 2 in the Fall, and level 3 in the Spring?

For Penn State, only apply directly to that major if you have a 1400 SAT. Otherwise, apply DUS and in August/September.

For Foster, you really want direct Admissions.

15

@MYOS1634 I’m sorry, I’m really bad with a lot of this terminology, lol.

I believe you are saying that if I want to apply to Penn State, I need to have at least a 1400 SAT (I didn’t take SAT; scored 33 on ACT with writing). What is DUS?

Foster school of business at U Dub? Are you saying that I should ED? I’m sorry lol. I’m Canadian and I don’t have anyone going through this process with me, so I don’t know a lot of this stuff.

16

With a 33, as long as you take calculus (and preferably of you can improve on your foreign language skills/level reached) you can apply to Smeal at Penn State. There are two ways to the business school:if you’re top 10% apply directly to Smeal (and if you’re lucky you could also get in the honors program called Sapphire). If you’re among the 90% students with good but not exceptional stats, you apply “DUS” (general undergraduate) and enter the business school after Sophomore year. Most students get into the business school through this pathway. Applying to the business school right out of HS without top stats is a recipe for disaster.

Foster at UW is the opposite: you apply directly to the business school, because almost all students who get in were directly admitted out of high school. Applying from any other college or major is unlikely to result in Admissions to Foster.

17

All good moves. APCSP is borderline useless, whereas Calculus and Physics are solids. Take a CS 101 class in college to learn programming.

18

@MYOS1634

Thank you! I might just remove PSU from my list. I was never too keen on it, I just added it as a temporary option. I will check out UWashington’s business program!

@damon30
To clarify, I am taking APCSP now (last spring i thought I was going to be a CS major), I dropped AP Computer Science A.

Does this change anything? thank you for the input:)

19

Oh, ok. APCSA is a worthwhile class, most schools give credit for it, but it’s not as important as either Physics or Calculus.

20

It doesn’t. And while APCSP isn’t a full-on programming class, it IS very useful in that it presents most areas where CS plays a role and involves different types of activities beside programming which makes it more useful than programming alone in deciding about the different fields as a major.