Does it have to be AP Calculus?
For a student two grade levels ahead in math with an A+ in precalculus, he should not be afraid of AP calculus next year (especially if it is the slower AB version).
Thanks, but was asking a different question.
I don’t think so, but if you’re applying to Penn (Wharton) or schools of similar/less caliber (like Villanova or Notre Dame), then it should be AP if the school offers it. With Wharton it seems to be understood that AP Calc BC is expected, or at least for the typical level of admits.
I was accepted into Notre Dame Mendoza and Villanova with AP Calc AB. Not that it means much though as you don’t know my other stats. My school does offer BC however and I chose to do AB instead.
Villanova’s website says “It is highly recommended that applicants to the Villanova School of Business have at least one year of high school Calculus.” (First-Year Applicants | Villanova University)
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It should be whatever class is developmentally appropriate for your son. The best indicator of that is going to come from the teacher and school, as well as what others in his position have done. The AB version of AP calc isn’t typically too challenging for kids who breeze through precalc but your school will know best how to place him. AP vs. not is unlikely to be the single thing that determines admission.
You might want to start a thread on the athletic recruits sub forum as folks there will be able to give more detailed info wrt athletic recruiting and what they’ve heard from coaches about math background.
I am a mathematician and as much of a math snob as any other person. However I believe that math in general and calculus in particular is not everyone’s cup of tea and should not be a general requirement for everyone. Who is to say you cannot be a great historian, musician, lawyer, (add any non STEM field of your choice) without having any knowledge of calculus.
Also, a great point by @politeperson above about the availability of teachers who can effectively teach advanced math courses at many high schools.
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A post was split to a new thread: Course Selection for Daughter
My daughter was a recruited athlete and wanted to be an engineer. She took no calc in hs ( we moved twice) but had an excellent base level in algebra and geometry.
She picked an engineering school. As someone said above, schools, even top schools offer calc 1 classes so clearly it is not expected that ‘everyone’ has already taken and pass calc. In fact, my daughter’s engineering school had something like 8 sections of calc 1 for about 800 freshman (mostly STEM students, but also business and psych students). Many students in her class were re-taking calc after having taken AB or BC in high school.
Daughter did just fine in calc, better than many who were taking it for the second time.
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This is Stanford’s statement: any’ rigorous preparation in fundamental math skills and lists calculus, statistics and data science together as courses it ‘welcomes.’
I don’t know how that addresses equity since the high schools that don’t have calculus classes are not all of a sudden going to be able to teach data science or stats. Secondly, I doubt colleges, even Stanford, will not hold it against an applicant who takes stats over calculus if both were available. On and off the record, adcoms say that’s the biggest mistake they see on transcripts, independent of major.
Probably about half of US high schools do not offer calculus, but many of these are small ones, some of which focus on presumed to be low performing students (e.g. continuation or reform schools, juvenile hall schools). Probably about one out of five US high school students is in a high school that does not offer calculus. But even where calculus is offered, a student’s middle school math placement usually determines whether that student can take calculus.
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Not necessarily elite schools, but for any of your big competitive publics that use an algorithm to narrow down applicants, having 5 years of math is definitely a plus.
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I don’t know if middle school placement is as big a factor as not having teachers that can teach calculus/stats. Anecdotal of course, but the bay area middle schools I’m familiar with do allow you to retest at the end of 6th or 7th or 8th to accelerate so you finish with Calculus in 12th grade. Some high schools allow you take a summer class and passing a test to accelerate as well. I’m not a big fan of any of these but it’s possible.
My S20 is getting his BS in Chem, and the major requires Calc 1, 2 and 3 (plus Applied Math).
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DS had a pile of math to take for an economics major. And the classes themselves required use of that math.
I can certainly think of paths that would require little advanced math. But would you be truly excited about heading off to school know that only a fraction of what was offered was actually accessed to you?