I go to a pretty well respected all girls private school in Los Angeles and I am a sophomore. I got a B in algebra II/trig last semester, which makes me ineligeble for AP Calc AB junior year. I want to major in poli/sci or economics and am on the track to go into law (with extracurriculars and such). My options for next year are AP Stat with the online school for girls or honors calc. I will also be taking AP lang, APes, and APush next year. I don’t want to ever take calc AB because the teacher at my school is mean and gives an insane amount of homework, which is something else to consider. Which math option is better for me?
I assume you are taking Pre-calc this year? I would suggest taking Honors Calc next year. As a senior you could decide to take AP Calc AB or AP Stats.
Algebra II/Trig feeds into honors/ap calc at my school.
You may want to try these quizzes to check your knowledge of precalculus concepts needed for calculus.
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur_index.html
Calculus AB is roughly equivalent to college calculus 1, though the college course is a semester course versus a year course in high school. Try this quiz: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi
A high school calculus course that is less rigorous than calculus AB is often similar to a calculus for business majors course in college. Try this quiz (a subset of the previous one): http://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi?bcflag=1
A social science (including political science or economics) major will typically need to take statistics or a major-specific quantitative methods course in college. Economics majors often need to take calculus in college (AP credit may be accepted); at a few colleges (e.g. MIT, Stanford, Chicago, UCSC), they need to take multivariable calculus.
Since you’re a Sophomore and your goal is a Humanities/Social Science major, your optimal math sequence would be Honors Calculus junior year, AP stats senior year.
Based on the OP’s user name, she may want to go to Penn.
The political science major there does not appear to have a quantitative methods or statistics requirement, although there is a general education requirement in quantitative data analysis:
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/polisci/node/866
https://apps.sas.upenn.edu/genreq/results.php?type=M&cls=10
However, the economics major requires math through multivariable calculus:
https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/undergraduate/majors-and-minors/economics-major/course-requirements
(Note: Penn calculus courses are numbered differently; calculus 1 and 2 there are calculus 2 and 3 elsewhere. Penn students with less than high school calculus AB take “introduction to calculus” before calculus 1.)