^ the student does have a choice if the school offers AB then BC. Calculus is never a required subject, so the student can simply take the classes at a college or online. But this is a different issue different than what the original poster was asking for.
A student who reaches calculus in 11th grade to be able to take a two year AB and BC sequence is two years advanced in math. In theory, such a student should be a top math student who should be able to handle BC in one year after precalculus.
Schools which force students to take it over two years are probably inappropriately accelerating students in math, so that two year advanced students may not be as strong in math as they should be.
What I am seeing is this:
Common core Algebra 2 covers less.than the old A2/trig
Which means pre-calc has to cover that gap. Whch means at the end of the year they are not covering what they used to in pre-calc and AB has to close the gap.
If you take AB before BC, I don’t think that’d look bad at all. It’s definitely preferable to taking BC only and getting a lower grade, imo.
Schools that offer the “AB then BC” usually don’t give you the choice to skip. It wouldn’t make any sense, since the material is not overlapped from the beginning, as with the traditional “AB or BC” setup. That’s why I think that the OP’s school does not have this setup.
In the first place, the OP is looking to study finance in college, so not a STEM kid. In the second place, assuming that the balance of the schedule consists of rigorous courses across all core subjects and that the GC rates the schedule as most demanding and the teacher recs indicate that the sutduent challenges him/herself, please provide examples of highly selective colleges who will view AB/BC as a 2 year sequence negatively even if the HS offers a 1-year option. In the third place, as a sophomore, the OP has no idea where s/he will attend college, so does not know credit/transfer policies. But on a global scale, credit for or placement from MVC (which to point #1 will not be needed for finance) will be less likely than credit/placement from BC.
While in general, I’m not a big fan of slowing the pace, considering future goals, the 2 -year sequence probably fits the OP’s needs better. As with many questions asked, the real answer is “it depends” and context is going to be key.
@notmyname8. The answer is “it depends.” I agree with @ProfessorPlum168 that the most important determinant is your grade in Math Analysis (is that Precalc/Trig?) Secondarily, what is the typical sequence at your school? At my kid’s school, the most common sequence is AB followed by BC over two years. Getting to BC by senior year earns the “most rigorous” classification from the GC. A relatively small number of students are advised to go directly from Precalc to BC based on their Precalc grade. My kid followed this sequence and has to work very hard to hang on to an A in BC. Homework load per night is about 90 minutes, on average, sometimes more. However, the BC teacher is known to be very demanding and it’s my impression that he covers more material in more depth than is included in the AP curriculum.
I would ask students in your school about the teachers that offer AB and BC and their expectations with respect to workload and pacing. A discussion with your guidance counselor or advisor would be helpful as well.
@bp0001 Can I ask why you aren’t a fan of most students taking multivariable in HS?
My understanding came from a friend who’s in the advisory business. Apparently, some highly selective STEM-focused colleges go beyond what GCs assert. They actually look at an applicant’s entire set of coursework, including sequencing, to decipher his/her academic abilities, along with other academic indicators.
Aside from the fact that there is no indication that the OP is targeting “some highly selective STEM-focused colleges,” I’d posit that your friend is seriously overestimating what a AOs can (or wants to) accomplish in the 10 minutes they spend reading an application.
If you think you will struggle in BC then take AB. You are still ahead of the game.
@skieurope Your point that the OP is not a STEM student is well taken. However, I wouldn’t underestimate the length with which some colleges would go to select among their applicants had they survived the initial read.
@1NJParent by the time my D20 graduates she will have AP Cal AB, Calc BC, Physics1, Bio, Chem, both Econs, Comp Sci A, and 6 other AP/DE classes. You really think an adcom would look at that and think she’s not STEMMY/advanced enough?
@flyawayx2 There are a number of reasons:
- People overestimate the number of students studying a STEM subject in college and have any calc leaving HS, even at selective colleges. It is more common then you think to start at Calc I in college. Starting in multivariable in college will place you with the more advanced students who you want to get to know and study with. There may be a handful more advanced, but it will be rare.
- Multivariable is more complex than Calc 1 or 2. If you are struggling, I think college is structured to get more assistance from professors outside of class where office hours are built into their schedule versus an overloaded HS teacher. Look at the number of hours of instruction each needs to do.
- The OP implied that multivariable was offered by the HS. With no AP test, there will be no credit for college. Even if taken at a college, many selective schools don't accept college credits earned before graduating HS.
Math in finance can be simple as just being able to add numbers in an accounting spreadsheet but also can extent to solving multi dimensional stochastic differential equations to evaluate complex financial derivative deals or doing predictive analysis for trading strategies, thus a good preparation in math should not be underestimated. Many competitive private colleges don’t accept AP credits, but a strong background in math can help to stand out in admission and should be helpful when actually taking those courses at the college level.
“by the time my D20 graduates she will have AP Cal AB, Calc BC, Physics1, Bio, Chem, both Econs, Comp Sci A, and 6 other AP/DE classes. You really think an adcom would look at that and think she’s not STEMMY/advanced enough?”
A lot would depend on what the hs offers, if BC is the hardest course, then that’s it, but there will be students that have taken BC in 10th or 11th, then MV or Diff Eq at a community college, which would look more challenging than just BC. However whether or not that influences an admissions decision is another thing altogether.
“A student who reaches calculus in 11th grade to be able to take a two year AB and BC sequence is two years advanced in math.”
You do post this a lot, but times have changed a little, bay area, many high schools, BC in 11th is one year ahead, and in some places, one year behind the top of top stem students, i.e. many take BC in tenth, stats in 11th, mv/linear alg/de in 12th. Many, maybe most of the non-stem students applying to the selective colleges take AB/BC in 12th, so I don’t see how AB/BC in 11th is two years ahead.
High schools heavily loaded with high achieving math/science-oriented kids of parents who work in computing and engineering may seem that way, but it is unlikely that completing calculus in high school is the norm overall. Indeed, the high school course catalogs for the districts in the three largest bay area cities list calculus BC or IB math HL as the highest math course (though presumably the few students who finish calculus BC in 11th grade can take additional math at a community college).
If it is the norm that students complete calculus in high school in California, why do the standard course maps for math-heavy majors at UCs and CSUs start at calculus 1 instead of a more advanced math course?
In any case, a student who reaches calculus in 11th grade should be a strong student in math who should be able to take calculus BC in one year starting from completion of precalculus. I.e. the two year AB then BC sequence does not make sense, unless the high school is implicitly admitting that many students were inappropriately accelerated too far in math back in middle school.
You all are not taking in to account that with the shift to common core, the math sequence has slowed down, not sped up.
When my D17 was in middle school the normal college prep class track in our district was:
7-prealgebra
8-algebra
9-geometry
10-A2
11-precalc
12 Calc AB
The middle school had a full class of 30 eighth graders in geometry on the plus one track and 5 or 6 7th graders on the plus 2 track.
The normal common core college prep class track in our district is now:
7-Math 7
8-Math 8
9-algebra
10-geometry
11-A2
12-precalc
There are only a handful of eight graders in Geometry and no 7th graders.
My older kids’ school teaches AB and BC as a two-year sequence without much overlap. Some top students skip AB and often come to regret that. One issue is that by all accounts the teaching quality for calc is lacking; I don’t know how common that issue is.
One of my younger kids was accelerated, along with a small handful of peers, to algebra 1 in 5th and will take precalc in 8th. We have not decided which high school he will attend, but it seems to me that reaching beyond BC in high school (as he will) is unlikely to add significant admission benefit.
Seems like if there is a shortage of calculus teachers, having the top math students spend only one year on calculus (i.e. all of BC immediately after precalculus) means that the school needs fewer calculus teachers than if those students took AB followed by the rest of BC over two years. Of course, that does mean that those who finish BC in 11th grade or earlier need to go to a local college if they want to take more advanced math.