D wants to jump math tracks for BC calc. Help?

Hi all,

Our district tracks for math in 6th grade. My daughter has been on the “accelerated” but not honors track. That means she has taken 9th grade math in 8th grade, etc. She is set for AP calc AB as a senior. This year she has really blossomed in math and seems to love it. She sailed through pre-calc. She really wants to jump tracks and take AP calc BC as a senior. The school has said they may consider it if she can self study enough over the summer to prepare. I’m not sure I think this is a good idea, but I’m willing to support her attempt.

Any suggestions for what exactly she should be studying? She will be asking the teachers for topics but I’m not sure I want to rely solely on that. Should she just pick up an AB calc text and go through it? An online course?

Thanks all!

What does she hope to gain by doing this?

Honestly, I think she mostly just wants to push herself with more math. She really fell in love with math this year. However, I think a small part of her believes that it will give her a better chance at getting into a BS/MD program. I’m trying to dampen down that idea.

The difference between AB and BC is completely doable. Most of the kids in BC haven’t experienced the AB stuff yet, but they do go over it faster in their class.

@existential12 The guidance counselor told her that her regular pre-calc class didn’t prepare her as well as the honors pre-calc would have. That is the gap she is trying to bridge.

I see in another thread she wants to start as pre-med in college. What major is she looking at in college? Natural Science? What other classes is she signed up for next year?

Does BC in that high school have AB as the prerequisite, or just precalculus as the prerequisite?

BC versus AB is only one semester of advanced placement in math at most (beyond the semester advanced placement that AB typically gives). But self studying all of AB over the summer is a lot of material. Not sure if that is a good idea.

If she does want to do that, the MIT OCW 18.01 may be the most helpful resource. Note that it should have a free online calculus book by Strang.

If there is any question about the quality of her precalculus instruction, she can check her knowledge here: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi

I agree you don’t have to take calculus AB to take BC

Some additional resources:
Intro by Strang https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-005-highlights-of-calculus-spring-2010/
More introduction to calc concepts: http://prettygoodphysics.wikispaces.com/PGP+Calc+for+APPC
Schaum’s Outline for Beginning Calculus

This is not going to be a popular post but here it is:

Don’t take “no” for an answer. Just go to the school in person (set up a meeting first!) and DEMAND that she will be in the B/C class. They will bend, you just need to be aggressive. We have had issues over the years and once you are face-to-face in a meeting with the administration, they ALWAYS change their decision. A few times we were close to pulling out the legal card, but it never came to that.

B/C is not really that hard IF you do all your homework (for a math kid) and the curve on the A/P BC is nuts. Also since she is pre-med, a repeat of Calc 2 in college would make it much easier to get an A.

I don’t have daughters but I’m getting tired of girls not being in my boy’s classes. B/C in our school is majority boys but A/B was more girls. A/P Physics C had 9 boys and no girls. All the smart senior girls (Princeton, Penn, Cornell) took AP Bio with a few in A/P Chem or Enviro.

Come on girls, step up your STEM game and take the hard classes.

My D1 took honors pre-cal as a junior and then took calc B/C senior year. B/C was faster paced but she did well. Maybe your D could take the end of year honors pre-cal final just to see where she is relative to the other students? Many schools in our area ( public and private). Allow students to take either AB or BC after precal.

You should not have to take calculus AB before calculus BC, but some high schools make it a two year sequence with AB the first year followed by the rest of BC the next year, instead of offering the option to take either AB or BC immediately after precalculus.

The OP did not indicate which way the high school runs its calculus courses.

If the high school does AB then the rest of BC in successive years, then taking BC would require self-cramming AB over the summer. If the high school starts BC from the beginning of calculus (i.e. not requiring AB before BC), then all the student needs to do is verify that her precalculus knowledge is solid (the quiz in reply #7 could help).

If she is a math major (which is certainly possible as a pre-med), then she may choose not to look back and move on to more advanced math courses. Any medical school calculus requirement should be satisfied with multivariable calculus, real analysis, etc. for her math major.

The best answer depends on how AB and BC are taught in your district. In some districts BC is a standalone course, taken by the strongest students after Precalc, in others it follows AB.

If it’s the former, where they will simply be covering 2 semester’s worth of college calculus over the course of the year, I would say go for it, and have her spend the summer reviewing precalc, and if she’s comfortable get a jump start on the material that will be covered first. But keep in mind the BC class will be covering material at roughly double the pace of the AB class.

If it’s the latter, or the honors track precalc class covered parts of AB, it might be wiser to remain in the AB class. She will be at a distinct disadvantage if there is an assumption that she knows material that was never covered in the class she took, and the class is also at a faster pace. If she falls behind, it will be prohibitive to catch up. If she’s planning on being premed, she might also consider whether it’s wise accepting any credit that’s offered - she might be better off doing well in AB and building a strong foundation for future study.

I’d still like to see what else she is taking as she’ll be very busy with apps and if she is applying to BS/MD programs that may include interviews that actually matter and taking the time to travel to these interviews. I’m not sure exactly what she’s going to gain by pushing it if it’s a lot trouble. Taking AB will not get her out of Calc 2 which is all I believe she needs for med school. Her college might have a Calc 3ish class for life sciences if more is wanted/needed.

I would highly recommend that your daughter takes Calculus BC. It will be a little more rigorous (not by much) but it shouldn’t be that bad if she has a good teacher (if her teacher isn’t so good, then that might be a problem).

From a university prospective, there is a good chance that she can skip the first two calc classes if she does well on the Calculus BC exam overall; however, she can still probably get credit for the first class if she does well on the AB concepts alone, as the exam actually gives an AB sub-score that most schools will accept. I say go for it.

If she wants to study some herself, here is a selection of courses your daughter can try auditing (which cost nothing to just watch all the content) and might be good to try.

This one from Weston High School seems perfect for her to introduce the concepts without going too deep.
https://www.edx.org/course/ramp-ap-calculus-weston-high-school-calc360x

This one is an all-in-one course from Davidson that I never personally tried but looks great.
https://www.edx.org/course/apr-calculus-bc-davidson-next-calapbcx-0

And the all-reliable MIT open courseware, which has great content and production value. Fair warning, though; It’s structured for university usage and isn’t optimized for the exam.
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01-single-variable-calculus-fall-2006/

Best of luck, and I’m pretty sure she can do it.

Thanks everyone! In our school, its honors precalc - BC or regular precalc to AB. D was tracked back in 6th grade to a path leading to regular precalc. When she asked if she could register for BC she was told it was insane to do so becuase honors precalc covers some topics that regular does not. So, what she really needs to cover are the topics that she may have missed by being in the “wrong” precalc class.

This year has been a real awakening for her in math. Basically, the precalc class was too slow for her. She spent her time in class either doing homework or teaching the other kids. She easiliy got As on every test. She wants to push herself harder. She won’t admit that she is hoping for an admissions boost, but I can guess that its in her mind. She knows she will be competing with kids who have the most rigor in all classes. Personally, I doubt that the change will make much of a difference for the BS/MD programs since the chances are so slim to begin with. But I like the idea of her showing this much initiative. Not to mention the fact that learning how to teach yourself something is a great skill.

Next year, she will have a very rigorous schedule. AP Chem, Phys (regular), AP Calc, Ap Econ, AP Lang, Principles of Engineering, Science Research and Philosophy.

Can she find out what topics are covered in honors precalculus that she has not seen in regular precalculus?

The volume and rigor of these topics is important in deciding whether it is a good idea to self-study them over the summer to move from AB to BC at your high school.

She may want to try the “are you ready for calculus 1?” quiz linked in reply #7 to see if she is missing any precalculus topics. But it is possible that the honors precalculus course got a head start on calculus topics, so she needs to find out whether that is the case and what topics they are.

D17 took the Calc BC junior year after honor pre-calc with no issue. Her school’s Calc BC covers AB and BC, and just taught faster. She didn’t do any prep on Calc before the class. S20 took the Calc BC sophomore year after honor pre-calc with no issue ( so far). His school’s BC covers just BC, so he had to self study AB and test into BC. The teacher lent him the text book, he self studied over the first half of the summer (with occasional visit to Khan Academy’s website). Then he took the assessment test mid summer ( we were told it was the final for the AB class) and scored enough to be placed into the BC class.

So I agree with earlier comments/advise, whether to self study depends on how the BC class is structured at her school.

However I would be more concerned about the gap between regular pre-calc and honor pre-calc, and the impact of this gap to her ability to do BC.