I’m a senior right now and am currently taking AP Calculus AB. Our AP Calculus AB course is three marking periods long. 1st marking period I got an A-. This marking period, (second marking period), I have a C because I got a 44 on the related rates quiz. I have all A’s in math courses up to AP and I find that if I study, I actually do decent (shocker). I think I will take the AB Calc exam but I was wondering how that works in terms of college credit. I thought about self-studying for the BC Calc exam because I would get more credit in college but I am not sure. Can anyone give me advice about this? For context, I do not know where I will go to school and I want to major in international relations and a modern language but I haven’t decided which.
It depends on the college if you’ll get credit for an AP. For example, if you got a 3 in Calc BC, you’d get 7 credits at MSU, but 0 at Michigan. Just google the college you’re interested in and “AP credit”.
You would get more credits for BC, since it’s calc 1 and 2, but the test is much harder. I took BC calc and there’s no way I would’ve been able to learn it on my own. If you want to pursue higher levels of calculus, like multivariable calc and diff eqn, you need a strong foundation, which is hard to establish on your own.
You can’t take both the AB and BC test the same year. Though BC has an AB subscore, I’ve found that many colleges don’t accept the subscore. Therefore, my suggestion is that you focus on AB. Kill the exam, make up for that C, and get 3-4 college credits for it. Then, take Calculus 2 in college if you want to. If you don’t do well on the BC exam, you run the risk of losing out on credit for Calc 1.