<p>I am going to be a senior this year and I have a dilemma. I have to choose in my schedule between AP Chemistry and AP Calculus BC. I want to major in physics in college. I will be able to take AP chemistry and AP Calculus AB but I really want BC. Is AB just as good for my college goals? Any advice would be much appreciated! </p>
<p>P.S. I will also be taking AP English Language and AP Stats and AP Physics B.</p>
<p>(A generalization, check the colleges for info)
Take the BC test over the Chemistry test at all costs. Self-study the BC part if you want both.
Chances are, despite taking AP Chemistry, it often has to be repeated in college, yet Calculus is very often accepted at some Ivy Leagues I know and top colleges (but sometimes it is not).</p>
<p>You’ll need the BC part for a lot in a physics major. At the school I’m going to attend, all the physics classes require Calculus II. Some require Differential Equations which requires Calculus II even before that. Not to mention, the engineering/physics classes at college are easier to get, but the math ones everybody needs fills up often before you even get to register and you’re stuck hunting for random GE’s for a while.</p>
<p>Thanks! I was thinking that I could study the BC content on my own; the same teacher teaches AB and BC.</p>
<p>Take AB and self-study BC so you can take AP Chemistry also.</p>
<p>Ok! Thank you guys for the advice! How much extra content would it be to self-study? Just curious.</p>
<p>It’s actually not much in terms of AP content. It’s about 3 chapters out of a Calculus book
You have:
Integration Application: Arc Length/Surface Area–it’s a mere memorizing one formula that is basically plugging stuff in to use.
More advanced integration techniques: Taking the basic idea of integration learned in Calculus AB and learning a bunch of tricks, formulas, algebraic, and trigonometric manipulation to take integrals–it’s simpler than it sounds if you just practice a few problems after reading the textbook it comes pretty quick.
L’hopital’s rule: Another formula that makes your life with limits easier.
Improper Integrals: Basically another formula taking care of integrals that take the form of the area underneath the curve along an asymptote.
Euler’s Method: The concept is simple and understanding it makes it a 5 minute lesson.
Sequences and Series–two parts: Learning the different tests you can do for convergence / divergence (they’re infinite series and basically does this sum exist or not), learning to approximate series within a certain error bound, and the second part focuses on turning non-algebraic functions into a polynomial defined by an infinite series. That’s a 1 hour lesson on Khan Academy and is summed up basically in the formula for a Taylor Polynomial.
Polar/Parametric: Basically understanding what a polar / parametric curve is… Then you learn the formulas for differentiation and integration for them and how to calculate it.</p>
<p>^^^
You don’t need surface area, but you do need vectors. </p>
<p>Learning sequences and series takes considerably longer than 1 hour.</p>
<p>AP chem requires a lot of homework due to great number of labs. Son took 6 AP classes junior year and spent much more time on chem hw than other classes, including BC calc</p>
<p>The 1 hour is for Taylor Polynomials. And the convergence tests can be taught in 10 minutes each (except maybe the ratio/root test gets it’s own lecture) full on with several examples each as they are not too complicated. As well as adding necessary practice problem time.</p>
<p>As for vectors, as far as BC goes, they’re basically the same thing as parametric written in an <x,y> form… Never ever needed to learn anything more than that as of now.</x,y></p>
<p>I also forgot about logistics… But the BC test basically just asks you for their end behaviors / inflection point etc characteristics.</p>
<p>Update: I am able to take both now!!! Gave up AP English Language, but it’s worth it to get all the math and science AP’s that I want!! Thanks for all the advice!!</p>
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<p>Off-topic, but I never understood why they don’t teach that in AB. It’s like the easiest thing I ever did in calculus.</p>
<p>I would drop the AP Statss or something else and do both AP Chem and BC. As a physics major you really don’t want to be at a disadvantage with calc or chem. Most physics majors will have taken both AP chem and BC calc. AP Stats (or even lang) is far more trivial in comparison.</p>
<p>Just read the other posts. Looks like you have it figured out now. Congrats!</p>
<p>Yes, self-study the BC part of it. Not bad at all. There are many threads that guide you through it. Just search for the threads made by the user Equilibrium, he has a great guide on it.</p>