<p>I am a sophomore at a boarding school and I have to decide the courses to take next year.
For math, I can take Ap calculus Ab or AP Calculus BC. But I am not very good at math even though I have taken honor Algebra II and Honor Precalculus. And I am thinking about taking AP calculus AB instead of BC. But I am afraid that my admission will get hurt if I do not take the most rigorous math class. So my qustion is "</p>
<p>there are two things to consider here, I think.
one is demonstrating that you’re taking a rigorous courseload during high school. are you going to take some other math class (perhaps AP Stats, if it’s offered) your senior year? you should probably make sure that you’re going to do that, although I imagine your school will have something available. if you have a bunch of other challenging courses, especially in science, and you think you can do well in Calc AB, then you should probably just take that course.
the other is what good the Calc classes would do for you if you were to attend Cornell. you should check out this sheet to see what credits you’d get and what classes you’d be eligible to take: <a href=“Career Services | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University”>Career Services | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University; (it’s listed under Mathematics not Calculus.) for either the bio major or just any pre-med, you need to take Math 1110 (Calc 1) and Math 1120 (Calc 2), so you could very well get ahead.</p>
<p>personal caveat: I took Calc AB senior year of high school and found it very manageable. I was always decent at math, but not notably wonderful or anything like that. got a 5 on the exam. then I got to Cornell, took Math 1120, and it was my lowest grade of all of freshman year. it might have been advisable for me to have taken Math 1110 again in college (forgoing the credit I could have earned with the AP Calc) and then taken Math 1120 in the spring. anecdotally this has worked out better for others here whom I’ve spoken to about this.</p>
<p>I think there are a few factors to consider. First of all: are the teachers for the two classes different? At my school, the BC Calc teacher was great and you learned a lot while the AB teacher was pretty bad with most students not doing well on the AP test. That being said, BC calc only went about two chapters farther in the book than AB calc, so it shouldn’t be that much more work. Does your school offer anything beyond calculus? If it does, than you would really stand out by taking BC junior year and multivariable calc senior year. If your school doesn’t offer anything else and you want a better grade you could take AB then BC which would make your senior year very easy.</p>
<p>I was going to mention the teachers as well, but it missed up my two points. (really!) I think that’s a very important consideration.</p>
<p>It all depends on the teachers, what others who’ve taken the classes say about the workload, etc. </p>
<p>At my school, BC Calc has the best teacher, hands down. But he asks for a commitment, and we’ve even had a 3 hour session during February break. </p>
<p>the AB Calc teacher is not that good and doesn’t teach the subject very well. </p>
<p>As far as I know: </p>
<p>AB and BC:
-Derivatives (finding instantaneous rate of change.)
-Applications of Derivatives (finding max and min values on a graph.)
-Integration (the opposite operation of finding a derivative.)
-Applications of Integration (areas under curves, volume of curves when rotated, etc)</p>
<p>BC only:
-Anything involving parametric functions.(Probably the hardest of the BC only material)
-Polar Integration/Derivatives (same thing, just using polar coordinates.)
-Sequences and Series (VERY EASY STUFF, havent done Taylor or McSomething yet tho)</p>
<p>AB requires some basic and complex function knowledge along with a very good grip of algebra I think.</p>
<p>Do you think it’s plausible for the admission staff to say “This candidate is perfect! We’ll acce… oh wait, calc AB. Reject!”? It’s one thing to pick a rigorous schedule. It’s quite another to stress about pick AB or BC. Unless you’re a math/engineering major, I wouldn’t bother worrying about admissions here.</p>