<p>I'm in pre calculus honors right now. I did algebra 1 in middle school, geometry, algebra II, and pre calc honors and have gotten a's in all.</p>
<p>However, my school only offers AP calc. So is it possible to stop after pre calc? Would that still be considered 4 years of math?</p>
<p>Precalculus is normally considered high school senior level math, so it should be considered the fourth level in math.</p>
<p>However, why would you not want to take AP Calculus if offered (unless it is only AB and you would instead take freshman calculus at a community college)? Not taking calculus when you have the opportunity to do so does not look like you are taking the most rigorous schedule that university admissions committees like to see.</p>
<p>It’s not considered 4 years of math at the high school level. Although many kids do end with pre-calculus, that is because they do not reach pre-calculus until senior year. You should take the AP Calculus course unless you are 100% certain you want to go to art school or community college.</p>
<p>tahoe23: If you have been an A student in honors math classes all the way through so far, it would be a good move for you to take AP Calc. My D probably got wait-listed by one selective in-state school due to her lack of AP Calc even though she had taken a fifth year of math (regular statistics). On the other hand, she still got into a few fairly selective (though not ivy-league level) schools, both in-state and out of state despite that lack. So if you are thinking of applying to more selective colleges and universities the AP Calc will definitely keep you in the running since most kids applying to those will have had AP Calc of some kind. If you are applying to colleges with more modest entry requirements, you’ll probably be all right with the 4 years of math you will have by end of junior year. It would still be a good idea to show you’re “challenging yourself” with other AP (but non-math) courses in senior year to still be considered for the more selective schools. It’s a gamble. Decide your level of risk.</p>
<p>If you haven’t completed all the math offered at your school, yet you don’t take a math class during any given year, you’re putting yourself in a bad position for admissions.</p>
<p>It doesn’t look good for the rigor of your courseload if you’re not taking advantage of the math courses available to you. Even if AP Calc would be difficult for you, you should still take it. By not taking advantage of the next level of math, you’d make yourself look quite lazy.</p>
<p>The only circumstances under which you should have a year without a math course of any time are when (1) you have already taken every math course offered at your school; AND (2) dual enrollment in a college math course is not an option.</p>
<p>If you want to be a business major, I would recommend you push yourself w/Calculus.</p>
<p>Yes, you can stop after Precalculus. You don’t have to take Calculus in high school in order to go to an Ivy League school, for example—there’s a reason they offer it in college. Just make sure you have taken advantage of the most rigorous courseload you can personally handle. Getting a C in Calculus may keep you out of very selective colleges, but not taking calculus and instead getting an A in Art History won’t.</p>
<p>I think the context is that your hs doesn’t offer regular or honors calc. So, while calc is always advisable (for top colleges,) you may have a different situation. For a highly competitive college, you would certainly need to replace it with something equally challenging.<br>
Kinesiology, maybe business, AZ state? See what the GC says. ASU says: Math - 4 years - Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II and one course requiring Algebra II as a prerequisite.</p>
<p>I agree with T26E4: if you want to study business in college, you should take AP Calculus. If you wanted to major in, say, French or Middle East Studies, I’d say calculus wasn’t all that important, but your desire to major in business changes the picture for me.</p>
<p>There’s no reason to take calculus in high school in order to major in business in college. If your business program requires calculus, there will be time to take it in college. </p>
<p>Whether your decision will help or hurt you in admissions is a completely different question.</p>
<p>I agree with annasdad. They have Business Calculus/Concepts of Calculus for business majors. Calculus I is usually not required for business majors.</p>
<p>The crying shame, and scandal, is that in business you will never once <em>ONCE</em> need to figure out the area under a curve or acceleration and position.</p>
<p>But for advanced statistical concepts, which you. may need to. understand, you do need calculus.</p>
<p>Taking calculus will help you should you continue your interest in business - I think it’s a bad idea to have a gap year in math for any college bound student,especially if you find it challenging. Your interests make it likely that you will need calculus and stats in college…I vote for taking the course your high school offers and getting a tutor - even if its peer tutoring with one of your classmates. You can retake in college but the pace will be faster and at any large school the class size will feel big and impersonal compared to your high school. Being a better math student - whatever it takes to accomplish that - will never be a disadvantage in business.</p>
<p>Taking the most rigorous schedule is just a good idea in general. Yes, it’ll be difficult, but you’ll be having four more years of difficult classes after you graduate from high school. Calc 1 isn’t that hard that you have to dodge it to save your GPA. Maybe it’ll get you into the good study habits you’ll need for college, too.</p>
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<p>Calculus will help understanding statistics that is used in business. Also, intermediate microeconomics courses often use calculus. And knowing the concepts behind calculus also helps avoid being misled by statements like “job X is projected to have a high growth rate”, since that does not necessarily mean that there are, or will be, a lot of job X available, relative to the people seeking job X.</p>
<p>“You should take the AP Calculus course unless you are 100% certain you want to go to art school or community college.”</p>
<p>I disagree. My interests lie far away from STEM, and I plan to major in some sort of humanities during college. I’m looking at top colleges, and particularly interested in those with flexible or open curriculums. My senior year courseload is full of APs - English, Spanish, Euro History, Gov/Econ, and Pyschology. Senior year was the first chance I had to create a schedule geared towards my interests rather than trying to fulfill graduation recommendations. Pre-Calc counted as my fourth credit, and I hated every minute of it, and I would have given AP Calc a try if it wasn’t the same teacher.
I think it’s frivolous to worry about it if it’s something you don’t truly need for preparation for your future career, or unless the college you attend will require you to take Calculus at some point.</p>
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<p>Most universities have few to no significant breadth requirements in math and science (where they exist, they can typically be fulfilled by “physics for poets” type courses that are widely seen as fluffy joke courses).</p>
<p>Even a humanities major would benefit from some basic knowledge of calculus, statistics, and logic, if only to avoid being misled by common statements that confuse, for example, the measure of something with its rate of change (e.g. number of jobs versus growth rate of those jobs).</p>
<p>Maybe OP can clarify what he or she hopes to study- several posts from yesterday focus on kinesiology.</p>
<p>In previous threads, OP has focused on Kinesiology and business, perhaps sports management (?). He/she is aiming at large publics (Ariz State). Looking back, I think it’s a coin flip. I’d recommend the OP push himself/herself – but that’s just me.</p>