<p>At my school, the pre-calc/ap calc teacher is someone to be afraid of. I'm going into my senior year (doing course selections) and want some advice on what I should take.</p>
<p>I took Trig honors this year, and to take ap calc, I would have to take Pre-Calc over the summer online (MAJOR bummer). The other option is to take college calculus at the community college, which would be a much easier option and would have the same effect on my GPA as AP would, but I don't know if top-tier colleges would look negatively upon this. Of course the final option is to take Calc honors, but it would be better to take AP in that situation.</p>
<p>I greatly appreciate any help anyone can offer.</p>
<p>I don’t know how your school handles the math progression, but based on my experience, I don’t think you would be ready to take calculus at your community college without having had precalculus. I know that I wouldn’t have been ready without it.</p>
<p>My AP Physics teacher at my school is similar to the teacher you describe. I gritted my teeth and took AP Physics anyway because I wanted to challenge myself in science this year. I tried to be as judicious and mature as possible whenever I dealt with him, even if his policies seemed unfair or overbearing. Now, four weeks from graduation, he and I are on very good terms, and I am doing very well in his class. Maybe your perspective may change similarly.</p>
<p>A student on my guidance counselor’s list, who had never gotten an A in math before and had a 540 SAT math, has an A at our community college for calculus.</p>
<p>The work being difficult at the CC isn’t necessarily the problem I’m having though, plus, most students at my school take college level math after trig (college algebra) if they don’t go into pre-calc or calc honors. I’m looking to see which of the two “higher level” (college and ap) viewed more positively</p>
<p>They will be viewed equally if they have the same curriculum (for example, AP Calculus AB is equivalent to Calculus I, AP Calculus BC is equivalent to Calculus I/II). However, I’d be wary of the potential for colleges to see that you could have taken AP Calculus at your high school but chose not to. Of course, this could be for a variety of reasons: schedule conflicts, graduation requirements, etc. Perhaps you should make it moot and take a full schedule besides your college math class so you have a legitimate argument that you simply could not take it at your high school. This way you wouldn’t have to deal with your calculus teacher and there’s no risk of admissions offices balking a little bit. Win-win.</p>