<p>I went to school in China at one of the top schools in my city; math was extremely rigorous, so I have very strong mathematics foundation. In China, they don't cover a lot of topics in math, rather, they go extremely idepth. I'm back in the states now, and my school offers math courses up to differential equations. I'm a current sophomore taking pre-calc honors (no need to say how easy it is). I would like to be able to take differential equations senior year and multivariable calculus junior year, but that would mean I'd have to take AP Calculus BC over the summer. I have a strong potential in math, so I'd like to use the resources that are offered to me at my school.</p>
<p>My question is, is it really impossible (for a strong Chinese math student) to take Calculus BC over the summer?
I've heard a lot of people say that you need time to sink in the concepts, that you really need a teacher to force things into you; but still, (with hard work over the summer) would you recommend doing it?</p>
<p>If so, would you suggest taking an online course? Where should I take the online course? Or do you suggest not taking an online course at all? Or a summer school? What books should I buy?</p>
<p>I appreciate all of your suggestions and ideas, thanks a lot.</p>
<p>I think you should be able to do it 
If you take the course over the summer, you’re probably going to have really long classes. At my school, there’s normal and “condensed” summer school. Normal is taking two two and a half hour classes, and condensed is a 5 hour class. Condensed is REALLY fast; it only takes about 3 weeks to learn a semester. But my school only offers semester-long courses for summer school.</p>
<p>I’m kind of confused, though. Did you want to self-study? I think it’s completely possible, but would your school let you test out of AP Calc BC? If you use an online school like FLVS, your school might be able to see your grade on that and immediately let you into those classes.</p>
<p>You should get a review book, like Barron’s or Princeton Review, and do the practice tests to see if you’re ready for the AP exam. I wouldn’t suggest taking an online course, since you’d probably be learning the exact same things again.</p>
<p>Good luck! :D</p>
<p>Thank you so much @LosingCrayon ! Unfortunately my school doesn’t have summer school for math, I would definitely take it if your school had that!
What do you mean by “test out of AP Calc BC”, and “since you’d probably be learning the exact same things again”?</p>
<p>So my two options are:
A: Study with a payed online class or
B: Self-study with free courseware </p>
<p>I’m not sure if our math department will let me go to multi-variable if I did option B though…
I’m pretty sure they will let me to option A, but do you think it is worth it to take BC over the summer to be able to take higher levels of math during my junior and senior year?</p>
<p>Testing out of a class is when you get out of taking a class if you already know the stuff Like, when you go to college, people take tests on the foreign language(s) they learned in high school to get out of taking beginners’ classes. Depending on their score, they get put into harder classes. If you got a 5 on the AP exam, your school would probably give you credit for AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>When I said you’d be learning the exact same things again, I thought you would take summer school and then an online class. But now that I get it, I think you should take the online class. Sure, it costs money, but you’ll have an actual teacher that will be able to help you and make sure you understand everything Actually, most states have free online high schools. I’m looking into taking a few APs and Algebra 2 my freshman year of high school. FLVS is the one for Florida. It costs money if you don’t live in Florida, but it is considered one of the best online schools.</p>
<p>You should try to take the higher levels of math your junior and senior years! 
You seem really interested in math. I love math, too You’ll be farther ahead of everyone else, and it will look very impressive to colleges.</p>
<p>Wow @LosingCrayon you’re not in high school yet? You’ve got some very sophisticated insight; you’re very ahead of the game for high school! ;)</p>
<p>Ah I see! It would be nice if my school would let me test out of a class. However, the AP exams are in May, and I’ll be studying BC over the summer, so it seems the AP credit would be a little late. Although, it would be nice if my school let me take their own test to see if I could skip BC-I’ll look into that. My school accepts credits from CTY and EPGY, but I’ll definitely ask my the math department chair if they’ll accept FLVS. Thank you so much for your suggestions! </p>
<p>I wish you the best in your math endeavors! I’m sure you’ll be very successful in high school. Good luck buddy!</p>
<p>Thanks! xD I don’t know why I want to get ahead; I think it’s because my school has very little honors classes. My middle school only has math honors (1 year ahead) and honors English. But you’re the one who’s going to take AP Calc BC the summer after your sophomore year, so you’re way more ahead than me :P</p>
<p>You’re right, the AP exams would be way too late 
Hopefully your school will let you take their test, though!</p>
<p>CTY and EPGY are way better than FLVS xD FLVS is just a public school. I’d try FLVS is you can’t do those two, though. Since your school already accepts credits from those schools, try doing those, first How do you think I should approach my high school about taking Algebra 2 online? At my school, self-studying and online courses are unheard of :P</p>
<p>Thank you so much! I hope everything works out fine for you, as well Good luck!</p>
<p>Ah I see! Then I’ll try CTY or EPGY first. Oh you want to take Algebra 2 over the summer? My sister also wants to take the course over the summer. </p>
<p>I would first go to your Math Department Chair, and tell him/her that you’re very interested in math, and would like to use your summer to get ahead and learn more. Ask him about the possibility of learning it online through CTY or EPGY (or FLVS) so that you’d be able to take pre-calc next year. I’m sure he’ll be touched with your initiativeness in learning math!</p>
<p>One of my friends took pre-algebra through EPGY during the school year last year, finished it within 2 months before the summer, and got an A. He’s now in Calculus BC. I think learning math over the summer is great to get ahead, the earlier the better. It’s ok if previous students haven’t done it before; you’ll be the first! I think you’re a very motivated student, you’ve got a lot coming for you!</p>
<p>Well, I’ll be taking Honors Geometry my freshman year, because my school only has honors one year ahead for math I also want to take a few APs, but not for high school credit 
My school doesn’t have any college math classes; the most advanced is AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the advice! I’ll try finding out who the Math Department Chair is at my school xD I’m not sure if my school will let me though, because I heard they’re very strict about the prerequisites for classes. They might not acknowledge these online schools Hopefully they’ll let me test out of Algebra 2, though I already tried signing up for EPGY! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do it though, since it is quite expensive.</p>
<p>Woah O_O 2 months??? He went straight from Pre-Algebra to Calculus? xD Hopefully I’ll be able to finish the Algebra 2 curriculum that quickly :o Do you have any experience with either online school? Do you have any advice? xD Thank you for motivating me! I wasn’t really sure how to initiate this plan, but you’ve really helped me a lot!</p>
<p>No problem at all! You’ve also given me a lot of encouragement! I’m planning to talk to my math department chair tomorrow about studying from EGPY. Hopefully it will work out. I’m just still not so sure I’ll be able to finish BC fast enough; I’ve heard most people finish it in like 8 months, so I’m a little worried… As for tuition, you can try signing up for financial aid, you can call EPGY and ask them about it! First make sure that you will be able to take it, and then talk to your Department Chair. Remember, stand firm that you want to take the online course when talking to him, because he might discourage you (my Department Chair is like that).</p>
<p>Yes 2 months! He spent 1~2 hours per day (even on weekends), and finished it. If you have a decent Algebra 1 foundation, with hard work, Algebra 2 is totally achievable. I actually haven’t experience with online schools before. But from what I gather from my friends, you need to do some studying on your own, and a textbooks might help. If you’re going to do it, stay determined!</p>
<p>Tell me if you have more questions!</p>
<p>Instead of taking AP calc in the summer, take the Calculus at a community college in the summer. Then you don’t even need to take the AP exam for the credit.</p>
<p>@billcsho I’ll try to see if our local community college offers the course, thanks!</p>
<p>@Holocaust I’m currently in pre-calculus, did you finish both AB and BC in 3 months? That’s so impressive.</p>
<p>@AngEverlasting I was misplaced in my math courses when I changed schools and didn’t know the American system lets you take higher courses based on how good you are. So i was in precalc in my junior year (very simple and easy, loved trig and identities). The highest course offered is Calc BC at my school. So I decided to sign up for the exam, and with 4 hours a week I was able to cover the course in a bit less than a month. I ended up scoring a 4 on the AP exam. I just didn’t practice at all so I didn’t have the speed, otherwise it was very easy.
This year when time came for scheduling, they dropped BC because I was the only one interested. Thus I lost hope, because I was misplaced and then they ripped my hard work out of my hands. Nonetheless, I signed up for the BC exam which is on wednesday (in 3 days). I procrastinated a bit too much, and i started studying this morning and now I’m done, I honestly don’t even know why they have to make a separate course and don’t just have AB and BC together as just one calculus course, the extra concepts in BC are a joke. I feel confident that I will score a 5 on the AB subscore and a 4 if not a 5 on the BC score. You are probably wandering as to how I did this, its very simple. I recommend these books for you to study from.
AB: How to Ace Calculus (ISBN 9780716731603)
BC: How to Ace the rest of Calculus (ISBN 9780716741479)
BC (not really necessary): Be Prepared for the AP Calculus Exam (ISBN 0972705554)
Practice: The humongous book of a thousand Calculus Problems. Don’t have the ISBN handy
Read the whole how to ace calculus, and understand it thoroughly. I found it extremely enjoyable because its full of humour, unfortunately I found it after my AB exam - I just with I found it earlier. For BC identify the concepts and go over them in the how to ace the rest of calculus (it covers topics beyond BC) and then just to be on the safe side skim the be prepared book to make sure you didn’t miss anything (be prepared is completely optional and you don’t need it) Then you would want to go over problems in the 1000 calculus problem book, it has step by step explanations and is very good for practice, do not forget the practice. Another book that i saw online and wish I had seen before is Schaum’s 3000 solved problems in calculus, I am not too sure about it but it seems good, plus it will help you further out later on with higher level courses.</p>
<p>If you are as good as you claim to be, then this should be a breeze and you might even be able to cover this within 2 weeks or even 1 if you work hard. Just get these books (the two how to ace calc books will cost you 40 bucks) and you’ll be good to go. And please don’t go with princeton, barons, or those, I tried them and I just found it a waste of time and money. </p>
<p>I understand I might get some heat with my opinions, but please keep in mind everyone is entitled to their opinions and I accept yours, so please, positive feedback and criticism is welcomed but don’t go trying to call me a BSer and say its impossible to cover this that easily. </p>
<p>I love getting opinions from people who’ve gone through similar experiences. You have no idea how helpful this is to me! It’s extraordinarily reassuring to see that there are people like you who’ve done BC in such a short time! I am so sorry that your school dropped BC, that’s very unfair for you. Nevertheless, I am very happy to know that despite that, you’ve learned BC on your own rather successfully. It’s good to hear from people of different perspective. All I’ve heard from other people were that BC is extremely difficult, and discouraged me to learn it on my own. I doubted them, but now hearing from you makes me more confident. </p>
<p>I cannot thank you enough for recommending me those books. It would be such a hassle for me to try to find out what books are good for Calculus. I’m not in a rush to finish Calculus in 2 weeks though, as I have a full summer. But it’s good to know that it’s possible to finish it as fast as that. </p>
<p>Where did you move to America from? Is that the reason why you were able to do Calculus so fast? Do you consider yourself to be a pretty good math student? </p>
<p>I wish you good luck on your upcoming AP exam!!!</p>
<p>You can do it! I self studied Calc BC in one weekend and will probably get a 5. Maybe because I’ve already done AB last year.</p>
<p>Oh yes, 100% yes. Self-studying is completely manageable too. If pre-calc honors is a piece of cake for you, then just grab a few review books and in a few months you’re definitely good.</p>
<p>If your goal is to get a 5 on the AP exam, it’s probably guaranteed. (~65% translates to a 5) The questions are also quite repetitive and predictable from year to year. But naturally, if you want to gain a thorough understanding of the material and if time isn’t an issue, it’s always good to take a course. </p>
<p>I went to school in shanghai until 8th grade, and the rigorous chinese curriculum is definitely an advantage.</p>
<p>Excellent! Thank you @sonofgod908 for your opinion! And it’s good to hear from someone from China @sr97329 ! I’m also from Shanghai! Did you take BC, or are you already done with the course?</p>
<p>I’m in Canada and my school doesn’t offer AP courses, so I self-studied BC Just took the exam this week!</p>
<p>Wow, very impressive. Good luck on the AP @sr97329 !</p>
Why don’t you just take calculus BC instead of AB? Calculus BC covers the A part too. Many high schools just offer Calculus BC.