I am a junior taking Calc AB in good standing. I plan to take Calc 2 in a pre college summer enrollment next June and continue my Math journey in senior year with semester long Honors courses in Linear Algebra and Differential Equation. My school Math dep strongly against that idea and insisted that I take AP Calc BC in my senior year. No option to skip it nor place it out. Am scratching my head… but I really would like to continue Calc 2 in the summer.
Can you take a lighter high school courseload in the fall of senior year and then take Calc 3 at the same place you are taking Calc 2?
Alternatively, would they agree to give you an assessment before senior year starts and allow you to skip Calc BC if you did well on it?
ThankS for the prompt reply. Can’t take Calc 2 and 3 at the same time. I asked and school simply told me not to take Calc 2 in the summer but to return to school to take on Calc BC in senior year. Not that I would ace Calc 2 in the summer but I just thought it is a natural sequence to take after Calc 1. So my current thinking is to go ahead with Calc 2 in the summer and if I do well I will petition. If school still does not let me skip BC then I will sit out BC.
It will be a sharp acceleration, going from taking a 16-week class over 36 weeks to taking a 16-week class over 8 weeks.
As a tangent, I do not understand a bit why some school districts encourage kids to be two years advanced in math by taking pre-calc in 10th, then make AB a prerequisite to BC, undoing one year of acceleration.
One part of your plan I would check out is will your high school give you credit for Calc 2 when they seem to want you doing Calc BC senior year at the high school and if they don’t will you have enough high school math credits to graduate if you opt to sit out BC. I can’t tell if the pre college summer program is part of your high school or something you need approved by your high school in order to get high school credit. I’m guessing your high school does AB/BC so that you need AB one year and BC the next vs Calc BC covering both AB and BC in one year.
I am taking AP Stats right now also. Enough Math credit to fulfill graduation requirements for Math. They do not need to give me the credits for BC since there are other honors Math courses after BC if they allow me to take them. I still have time to think this over and may be the pre college program will not take me in… then all bets are off… it is just that I do not understand why I must enroll the BC class at the high school and they won’t even offer placem3nt test… kinda mind boggling…
Could you take BC during the school year and linear algebra and differential equations outside of school starting already during summer? For example
https://cty.jhu.edu/online/courses/mathematics/linear_algebra.html
https://cty.jhu.edu/online/courses/mathematics/differential_equations.html
If your grades are perfect, they may allow you to skip AB and instead take BC, it covers both so you learn and get credit, if you ace it then you advance to Calc 3 in senior year as per school’s requirement.
Math sequence is very much school specific so what any of us can say, is irrelevant if policy doesn’t same the same. As there is always a GPA gaming issue, schools try to stick to the rule and be fair to all.
Why don’t you study on your own for the BC part of the Calc BC exam? I’ve known a few people who have done that, successfully (ie forced to take Calc AB, signed up for the BC exam and got a 5 on both AB and BC). It’s not that much more - Taylor series, partial derivatives, not really that much more. Takes some discipline to study on your own. I agree that taking BC in a separate year is a big big big waste of time, you lose essentially one year.
Assuming you get a good score in both AB and BC then you can take Multivariate over the summer. Then you have all next year to take Linear Algebra and Differential Equations or maybe even Discrete Math. The gotcha possibly on this is that you won’t know your AP scores until the first week of July, and community colleges might not let you take Multivariate unless you have a passing AP score.
What you do need to figure out is if your current HS Calc AB class is taught like a a college semester A course, ie one college semester taught in one whole year, or whether the class material covers 2 college quarters, ie A and B, which is what the AB class is supposed to do. If the class is taught at the speed and material of 2 quarters, you should definitely sign up for the Calc BC exam instead of the AB exam. You literally would only have to cover a few week’s C material on your own. If your AB class is taught at the snail pace as described in the first scenario, you would have a lot more to cover, about 10-12 weeks worth of B and C material on your own. Either way if your ambitious enough and can studying effectively on your own, you should sign up for the BC exam either way.
I think your focus should be on learning because scoring 5 on AP isn’t that difficult for a gifted math student on his own but taking a year worth of classes and continuous practice/testing really helps you master the content. If you end up at a top university, likely standard of math class is going to be much higher than high school or community college.
I would just take BC senior year. If you want to take Calculus 2 in the summer, go ahead and do it and forego the high school credit for it. You’ll certainly be ahead of the game for BC, which is not a bad place to be at all.
I would not recommend skipping any math sequences your HS requires. You wouldn’t go from French 1 to French 3. Stay the course.
University of Illinois has a program for high students who are qualified. If interest check https://netmath.illinois.edu/academics/netmath-high-school-programs
I’m a college student who will be taking applied linear algebra during the summer. Although I can only take one course in the program I’m not sure how it is with high school students.
I legitimately don’t understand the logic behind taking Calc AB and then BC. I’d have recommended taking BC junior year.
Linear Algebra doesn’t make use of many calculus concepts. Differential equations would make use of Taylor Series but that’s about it from what I remember in terms of the gap between BC and AB.
Why do you want to accelerate your math?
Generally you would take Calc 2, Multivariable calculus and then Differential Equations in the usual engineering sequence. Linear algebra you might take if you are thinking about grad school.
So why do you wnat to take that now? Why not wait until college?
Your Math Dept head may have different reasons:
- S/He may not think you are ready for that level of math.
- can you get credit for the Calc2 at your HS?
- Where would you take Lin Alg and DiffEq? Local Community college?
- Are you the first student who has done this?
- Would they rather keep strong math students in the classes in HS?
Your questions are valid. My high school offers honor courses in multi variable Calc, linear algebra, and Differential equation as one semester long courses. The prereq is AP Calc BC. Every year there are about 15 students enrolled in these adv honors courses.
- I am in AP Calc AB now with an A standing mid way through the semester. If I did well in my summer Calc 2 at CMU, I am pretty sure I would pass the placement for AP Calc BC. The point is that my school does not offer placement for Calc BC
- Cant get credits for Calc 2 ar my school either
If I can’t take Calc 2, I may opt for a discrete Math course which is all proof driven… not sure if I am ready for this type of Math in the summer.
College calculus 2 and high school calculus BC are basically duplicate courses. There is no point in taking both.
CMU’s discrete math course 21-228 lists 21-127, 21-128, or 15-151 as a prerequisite; these prerequisite courses all appear to include introduction to mathematical proof techniques. If you are considering majoring in math or theoretical computer science, you may find taking one of these courses to be useful to determine how interested you will be in doing mathematical proofs.
Not sure why you are so determined to take a math class the summer between your junior and senior year, but here are some things you should consider:
- Summer courses a very fast paced. The class will be about 4x as fast as your Calc AB class. By the time you figure out that you are in over your head, it might be too late. Your classmates will likely be a least 2 years older than you and accustomed to the college pace.
- Summer courses are better for topics that you will not continue with studying.
- The grade will stick with you forever, including applying to grad school
- Will they let you enroll? Technically, you do not have the prerequisite until you get a 5 on the AB test. You will not have your score until July.
- Cost. The class will cost your over $4,500 at CMU.
I was in a similar situation as you a few years ago with lower level courses. My middle/high school didn’t have a system for skipping grades when I came, so I had to take the lowest level math course, which was super boring (especially since I was 6 years ahead in math during the time). I asked the school if I could skip to a more appropriate math class (which was 4 years ahead of what I was taking at the time), and they said no simply because I was in the lowest level math class. The next year I asked again, and again the next, etc. They let me skip 1 grade each year even though I was clearly qualified to skip 4 from the beginning, but in the end I got into the math class I wanted to take.
Honestly my advice to you is to self-study Calculus BC and request the school to give you a test on the topic over the summer or at the end of the school year so that you could skip the class. I don’t know about your school, but mine allows us to take tests over the summer to skip math classes (which I’ve been doing for the past 4 years).
As mentioned by @Eeyore123 , taking a summer program will probably not be the best option, not only because of the cost, but also because of the pace. Based on your original post, you clearly have a drive and desire to learn mathematics (and probably know a good deal already). If you have that drive, then put it to work on learning math. You don’t need to be part of a class to learn. Learn the prerequisites in your free time, and then test to skip those courses you don’t want to take.
Lastly, keep in mind that many of those courses you’ve mentioned are pretty fast-paced. They’re basically a typical high school math course done twice or even four times as fast. Unless you’re strong in math and are able to grasp the topics fast, you might not do as well as you think you would in those courses. Proofs become increasingly important later on, so you might want to get that down before you try out some of the more advanced courses.
Why not simply take the advice of the professional who has been doing this for years and knows the material?