<p>I'm heading into my senior year and I am really torn between taking AP Statistics and AP Calculus BC. Math is my weakest subject. All throughout high school I have gotten A's in all subjects every quarter, except for math, where I always get a B. That being said, I still have been doing honors math. I am not bad at math, its just that math is my weakest class. I have heard that Stats is easier than BC, but I am not all that concerned about that. I think I can handle BC Calc. </p>
<p>I have been leaning towards taking AP Stats just because it seems more useful to me. I am not sure exactly what I want to do when I am older, but I am considering a career in either the medical field (as a physician or a psychiatrist) or in business (probably marketing). I don't see how Calculus would really help me, since I am not considering engineering, and I think statistics would be helpful if I do decide to go into business. Also, I do spend a good portion of my free time reading sports websites, analyzing athletes' statistics, playing fantasy sports - just because I find these things fun. I like doing that. I think maybe stats would interest me more.</p>
<p>Obviously it seems like a clear choice that I should take stats. But everyone I talk to at my school is taking Calculus. I don't know anybody else who is taking Stats. Everyone says that Calculus is more prestigious, that it looks better for colleges, etc. They say BC Calc is the hardest math course and if you want to challenge yourself and show that you are a top student, you should take BC Calc. I know a few kids who are taking AB Calc because they can't handle BC, but nonetheless they are still choosing to take AB Calc over Statistics. I literally don't know anyone in my grade (approximately 500 students) who is planning on taking AP Stats. </p>
<p>Am I missing something? It just seems much more logical for me to take AP Statistics. But it worries me that everybody else is taking Calculus. I don't want to be peer pressured to take Calculus just because all my friends are taking it, but considering literally everyone is telling me to take Calculus, I am debating which would be better.</p>
<p>Is calculus really all that useful in any field other than engineering?</p>
<p>Don’t most med schools require “one year of college-level math,” generally understood to be 1 sem calc and 1 sem stats?
You’ll have to take both in college if that’s the case. I’d take calc so you’re not blindsided…and business is a LOT of math too.</p>
<p>AP Stats is usually seen as an elective math course - in that it is usually taken in conjunction with Calculus or another math, or taken by itself when all other math courses have been exhausted – I’d recommend Calculus. I was in the same boat at you (B’s in Honors math) – but when I took Calculus, the style of learning and the way the content is conveyed made much more sense to me (Disclaimer: I’m in AB, not BC) – but, regardless, Calculus is a different style of math than you might be familiar with; it made far more sense to me than Trig or Geometry. I’d say give it a go - colleges <em>do</em> prefer to see it, regardless of major. </p>
<p>Take both of them, AP statistics is actually a /fun/ course (what I have heard from seniors) and BC calculus is largely a reiteration and foundation building of what you learned in AB.</p>
<p>Here is what the College Board says about BC:</p>
<p>AP Calculus BC includes all of the topics covered in AP Calculus AB, as well as convergence tests for series, Taylor and Maclaurin series, the use of parametric equations, polar functions, including arc length in polar coordinates, calculating curve length in parametric and function equations, L’Hôpital’s rule, integration by parts, improper integrals, Euler’s method, differential equations for logistic growth, and using partial fractions to integrate rational functions.</p>
<p>In response to the previous poster, I have not yet taken AB Calculus. I am currently enrolled in Pre-calc honors. In my school you either take AB or BC, not both. Is that unusual? Is that another reason to take Calculus? I don’t have room in my schedule for both Stats and Calculus. </p>
<p>It’s not unusual, I went straight from pre-cal last year to Calculus BC (and also AP Stats) this year. If I were in your position I’d take Calculus because,</p>
<p>-as far as I’m aware, a few med schools do require calculus.
-even if you don’t do so well in BC, you’ll be very familiar with the material once you get to college.
-stats is probably easy enough that you can do well in it in college without prior experience, if you’d even want/need to take it at that point.
-it’s hard.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for the responses. It seems like everyone agrees I should take BC Calc. This is definitely making me lean toward Calculus. Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>Not really. I have been consistent enough with my math grades throughout high school that myself, my teacher and my counselor all think I could handle BC if I decide to take it. If I do decide to take calculus, I will take BC. I am not so concerned about the difficulty as much as which would be more useful to me.</p>
<p>Having taken all three, I’ll definitely say that AP Stats is easier in terms of the material, but there are so many useful (mostly calculus-based) topics that AP Stats leaves out such that it is probably more worthwhile to take a statistics course in college instead. I’m not sure how useful calculus is for a degree in medicine, but it is definitely useful in business and other non-engineering fields (all of my CS classes so far have used Calculus BC topics to an extent). I think you can handle BC.</p>
<p>If you really want to take AP Stat, I recommend also taking AB too, if you have room. I wouldn’t recommend BC and Stat as some have suggested because that would be a lot of work. If you really don’t want to take calc, or have no room in your schedule, then I would not stress about it too much. There are plenty of kids in my county that don’t take calc (not at my school though, we’re required to go through at least AB to graduate).</p>