Hello!
I’m currently trying to figure out my senior schedule and I can’t decide between college calc 2 and 3 in the high school or ap stats.
I took ap calc ab this year and understand it fairly well (even having a new teacher who can be quite confusing at times). I have no background in stats, which makes me slightly apprehensive to take a class I could be absolutely awful in.
I’m looking for tips on finding out which would be a better class for me to take, aspects to consider when choosing, positives and negatives of each class, and opinions from people who have taken either or are familiar with either. Also, do colleges prefer one over the other?
Thank you!
Calculus 2 and 3 are generally considered more rigorous than AP statistics, which is typically modeled after a low level introductory statistics course for students who need to fulfill a quantitative reasoning requirement. More in-depth statistics courses in college have calculus as a prerequisite.
Is your intended major when you go to college one that will use calculus 3 (e.g. math, statistics, engineering, physics, chemistry, economics) or not?
@ucbalumnus My wish is to go into the humanities, but because it’s fairly difficult to find a high-paying jobs in journalism and other areas I’m interested in, I’ve definitely considered engineering.
If you want to go into engineering, taking more calculus through calculus 3 is preferable.
If you want to go into humanities or some other major with no specific math needs, an understanding of statistics is definitely useful generally. However, if you like math and know calculus well, you may find a calculus-based statistics course in college more worthwhile than AP statistics. Note that biological sciences and social studies majors do often use or require statistics. Philosophy (a humanities major) will be helped by practice in logical thinking as used in math (particularly proofs like you may have seen in geometry).
Why not just take calculus 2 (?not 3?)
@MYOS1634 the only calc course that is offered beyond ap calc ab at my high school is a class that covers both calc 2 & 3 in combination
AP Stats is a course that for some reason college often do not offer credit for. That said you have probably met the math requirements for a humanities degree and since Calc 2/3 is not an AP course you would have to retake them in college if you did decide on Engineering. I would check a few universities you are interested and see if they will accept AP Stats for a stats credit. If so I would lean in that direction. If not how much do you like math?
If calculus 2/3 is a college or dual enrollment course, it may be accepted for transfer subject credit. If not (or even if so), the OP could take it and also take the AP calculus BC test (that tests some of that material) to cover subject credit from that direction.