I have officially chosen my major and top college; however, I’m a senior and I’m not taking calculus. The college I’m most interested in requires Calculus for admission… Junior year I took Trig, but our school district changed rules this year and NOBODY can jump from Advanced Trig to Calculus (only people who took Honors Pre Cal can take Calculus). They won’t bend the rules and have kicked people out. Since I’m unable to take Calculus, Im currently taking AP Statistics…
Anyways. What are my options? Should I take AP Calculus online? Or just an online college calculus? Or are there other alternatives? Thank you.
Online, via tutor, community college, and get a 5 on the AP test. Most districts have an analysis, functions, or pre-calc class prior to calculus so you may have extra studying to do.
The reason your preferred university requires Calc is typically that they don’t have an intro Calc offering.
Yeah, I think this is an extenuating circumstance. Maybe, as @TooOld4School stated, you can see other alternatives (I don’t know whether online courses work for the college, maybe even Coursera/edX) or a community college or even AP Calc BC. If you start studying from now, I’m sure you can get a 5/4 on the exam and still complete the calculus requirement by the time of marticulation.
As I stated, just call the admissions’ office and tell them your story. They’ll help you more than anyone here.
Mudd specifically states in their admissions page that you need a year of HS Calc or a semester of college Calc. I can’t imagine a student making it through the first year if they didn’t have it, honestly. I don’t know if that is the school the OP is referencing, but it is one example.
^although I highly doubt Caltech strictly requires that you took calculus in HS (otherwise why would they offer a single-variable calculus course?). However, you should have taken pre-calculus or equivalent, as there is no such course there.
Technically all Mudders take Calc at Mudd, but it is one quarter (first quarter on campus), and I think they mostly cover the BC material. A student coming in cold with no Calc would likely fail it, as they generally have 4 other classes as well.
I.e. Caltech’s “single variable calculus” course is not an ordinary single variable calculus course like that found at most schools (which may be why they expect students to have seen single variable calculus in high school or another college first). The closest MIT equivalent is probably 18.014 (calculus with theory), which uses the same textbook by Apostol: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-014-calculus-with-theory-fall-2010/
However, Caltech and Harvey Mudd are outliers as far as frosh math courses are concerned. Very few other schools expect incoming frosh to have had calculus in high school.
To be realistic, it means that OP 1° needs to take calculus now (hopefully there’s an online course or a CC on the quarter system nearby) AND 2° get an A relatively effortlessly in order to have a shot at Dream School.
In other words, OP needs to have a very serious list of matches and likelies that s/he likes and are affordable.
Thank you.