I am currently a senior in high school and although I originally decided to take AP Calc AB this year, I had to drop the class and transfer to AP Stats because I couldn’t handle the coursework. I know a lot of people say that not taking calculus is a “kiss of death” for admission to schools at the Ivy level, but does it really matter if I’m going to be an English major? At my school, AP Calculus is extremely difficult (I dropped out because 1/3 of the class was failing) and I don’t have any space to have normal calculus in my schedule. I’m assuming that I will still get “most rigorous” for my schedule since I took 4 APs last year and this year (at my school the max is 3 APs for both junior and senior year, but if your grades meet a certain standard, you can make an appeal to take 4 APs. Additionally, all of our regular courses are at the honors level). So how badly will taking AP Stats hurt my admission chances (my top school is Columbia, applying ED)?
One class won’t make or break your application - since you’re applying as an English major, you’ll need straight As in the most rigorous Humanities and Social Science classes your high school offers, plus everything else - essays, recommendations, ECs, personality, everything matters.
However, if you do need to take calculus in college, you may wish that you had calculus AB in high school, since a college calculus course covers the AB material more quickly (typically in a semester to a little more than a semester).
^ an English major won’t need to take calculus in college. They typically take general education classes such as Math for Daily Life, Math for Citizenship, Geometry and Art…
Since the OP intends to apply to super selective colleges, s/he may want to check how high level math courses are required for their quantitative reasoning requirements.
I’ve been updated that I can take normal calculus instead of AP Stats…should I do this or does AP Stats look better because it’s an AP?
Normal calculus is better as long as you feel that you can get a B or higher (calculus with a C or worse won’t be of any help).
DO plan to take Statistics in college (even an applied statistics of “statistics for citizenship” or whatever title indicates it’s a stats class for humanities majors with real world examples). It’s a class that helps you understand the world around you and that you can list under “list of relevant coursework” on your resume regardless of the job or internship applied to.