@droppedit Nope. Apparently, the pre-req is calc II for physics II. But, depending on the type of college you go to Ivy, Elite, Top 20 etc. the rigor is much higher. I posted on the Ivy thread and learned quite a bit about how the classes are structured and the expectations. More math in high school is a huge advantage.
@droppedit There is not a single CS course offered at our high school. I actually think D would have loved CS but I knew nothing about it and never got her started in it. My 6 year old, math kid will absolutely be introduced to CS but I’ll have to do it outside of school. Don’t even get me started…
At our high school, Honors Precalc prepares kids for BC Calc, but it includes Trig. Some kids choose to take AB Calc, while others enroll in BC, depending on how well they have done in Honors Precalc. Perhaps talk to the BC Calc teacher(s) to see what your daughter might be missing. The teacher will most likely have encountered the situation in the past and can help your daughter avoid pitfalls. It’s easy to fall behind in BC Calc as the course moves very quickly.
Re: #36
Calculus based physics 2 with E&M commonly has calculus 2 as a prerequisite and calculus 3 as a corequisite, though it is probably helpful to have completed calculus 3 before.
Everything that @NoKillli sai, I echo.
My D was on the slow track for math and it was personal; she clashed with the math dept. head in 8th grade because she was asking to be put on the fast track and the dept. head said ‘no’. By the end of 9th she was becoming very frustrated, so she enrolled in CC as a Dual Enrollment, gained 5 college credits and finished the equivalent of
AP Calc BC at the end of 11th. It was a poke in the eye to the dept. chair, but at that point, we couldn’t care less. Girls belong in a math classroom every bit as much as a boy!
That’s ridiculous! Almost everyone in a STEM major (and many others) could benefit with a basic structured introduction to CS … if nothing more than to understand more about writing Excel macros, simple web stuff, etc. It will help them later in whatever job they choose.
Note: I wouldn’t want my kid to major in CS because I think that would be terminally boring … and I write software for a living. Now, a minor in CS is a different story.
@droppedit What can I say. I completely agree. The next thread I start will be about how to start my little one in CS.
For a CS introduction, she can go through http://cs10.org on her own.
Or the book “Python for the Absolute Beginner”. My 10th grader completed the book independently and loved every minute of it. She begged to go to a CS camp this summer after finishing the book.
@gallentjill – I’m the world’s worst teacher (just ask my D18 or DW) so I can’t help too much there.
I will say that I’m forever indebted to my HS math teacher, who pulled me out of study hall into her computer club/class (I was a typical Central Texas HS idiot boy at the time). The most important thing she ever did was to “demystify” computer programming right off the bat. It was really simple: she was a computer/robot and we had to tell her how to sit down on a chair. She would walk into a wall because we forgot to tell her to stop, fall backwards onto the chair because we forgot to tell her to stop or bend her knees, etc. Her goal was to drive home to us that computers are incredibly stupid machines. We had to break down the problem into very simple steps.
Another important issue is whether your kid is a top-down or bottom-up learner. Me, I’m a top-down learner. I require a goal to achieve and will learn the things required to reach it. A bottom-up learner would learn all the basics and then progress higher levels.
PS. it just hit me that at my HS in freaking 1980 we had a computer club/class (this was a lower-middle class public HS in NE San Antonio, not some fancy-schmantzy private school) and your kid’s HS in 2018 doesn’t. Makes no sense.
My older son taught himself basic programming via Visual Basic for Dummies in elementary school and took a one week summer camp in Java in 7th grade. After that he explored various stuff online including MIT’s open courseware. I took Calc BC in the dark ages in 1973 in didn’t take any more time than any other math course. My less mathy kid took Calc BC as a senior - the mathy/cs one took it as a junior.
@gallentjill is there a community college nearby? Perhaps you can augment/replace classes using the college.
Art of Problem Solving has a really good AP Calc BC online class that I recommend.
In our PA public HS, you need to get 95 and above all four quarters to go straight from precal to BC. My D had precal in 9th grade and she would finish all the math sequence the school can offer anyway. And she had 94.5 the first quarter. The teacher asked us what we wanted to do since she can do AB or BC. We asked her and she said she didn’t want to do distance learning for cal 3 (which HS would pay for), and she wanted AB first. She did. She had easy As and 5s in APs …She took LA honor the last year of HS.
She is rising sophomore CS premed at Vandy and just took cal 3 last semester. She took it mostly for CS. She will have a lot of math classes for CS. 
If OP daughter doesn’t take BC, she would have to take in college. For some colleges, cal 2 is major weed out class. She would have to deal with premed and math weed out at the same time, which will not be fun!
My daughter took BC along with several of her friends (and my younger will max out with BC as a Junior at the latest). I’ve found math to be one of the easier subjects to accelerate/self-study when truly motivated. If your daughter truly loves the subject, has become good at it, and it motivated to prepare correctly, I see no reason not to encourage and support it.
This is a bit of an odd response as OP’s daughter is the one requesting to be in the BC course and the school has expressed that they’re open to it.
Its not as easy as just stepping up your game. Alot of misogamy and just plain old good old boy ethos or discrimination goes on in the math world . When those problems are solved you will see alot more girls
I couldnt agree more!!!
In my DD’s school, the kids can take either AB or BC after pre-calc. My kid couldn’t take BC because of scheduling conflict with AP Physics C. I haven’t finished reading all the posts, but honestly, how other schools teach is irrelevant.
OP, I suggest re-read post #12 by @ucbalumnus and post #14 by @CTScoutmom . It really depends how your school teaches.
BTW, IMO, regular pre-calc should be easy for anyone who is capable of doing AP Calc (regardless AB or BC). The magnet school in our area does not even include pre-calc in the curriculum. As an aside, a few kids in my DD’s class take AB (due to scheduling conflict) but take the BC exam.
A strange scheduling choice by the high school, since the strongest math students who would choose BC are likely to overlap significantly with the students who want to take the more math-heavy AP physics course.
^^indeed it was. I don’t think the Principal saw the difference.
Did she take Math II test? That might be another indication of her readiness.
An alternative is to take AB with stat, to improve the math rigor.
D was one of the few girls in physics C, and didn’t do as well on AP test on E&M as she missed so much school in the spring between admitted students weekends and scholarship trips. That is something to keep in mind. She has to take physics anyway as that is part of premed classes suggested to her by her advisor. OP daughter might be the same.