<p>Depends on the high school, but even if true, so what? Welcome to college! (This is supposed to be a college-level class, not a watered down ver.)</p>
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<p>Then why not water-down every other one of those AP’s on the list? Teach them ALL over two years? Why math exclusively? </p>
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<p>Not necessarily. Instead of psat prep, there are college essays, scholarship essays, etc.</p>
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<p>Perhaps even a good history student would benefit from a better absorption rate.</p>
<p>Perhaps even a good *Literature[/o] student would benefit from a better absorption rate.</p>
Because we’re obsessed with the idea that all educated people should be exposed to calculus, whether they have a knack for math or not, and even though it is worthless to many of them.</p>
<p>But does it make sense at all to have any students do the two year AB-BC sequence?</p>
<p>Students in the position of being able to do so are the top students in math (two grade levels ahead). So they should be able to handle BC over one year. When I went to high school, it was never a question that a student two grade levels ahead in math would go to BC, get an easy A in the course, and get an easy 5 on the AP test.</p>
<p>A slower paced introduction to calculus (i.e. AB) would be appropriate for those who are good but not great in math (one grade level ahead at most) and not confident enough in their math ability to take calculus at college pace. Such students would take AB as seniors in high school, so the question about mixing them with other BC students the next year is not relevant. (Of course, if they really don’t want to take calculus, they can stop after precalculus, or take statistics.)</p>
<p>There are some other factors that people have yet to bring up. If possible, I’d have your daughter ask some friends that took BC about how the teacher is. With the way that my BC teacher structured the curriculum, he taught at an extremely fast pace and then left ~1 month before the AP test to strictly practice and review material. It’s a system that works and he had 24 students get a 5 and 5 students get a 4 (out of a class of 29) on the test the previous year and I go to a public school. </p>
<p>Also, ask her if she enjoys math (or at least finds it not boring). That will play a big difference in how she performs in the class. How is she doing in pre-calc? </p>
<p>Colleges will definitely NOT look down upon people that take AB and then BC the following year but I just want to say that it’s is very do-able and BC isnt THAT much more difficult than AB. I took a similar courseload with similar extracurriculars in terms of level of commitment and responsibility and ended up LESS stressed than sophomore year and more free time.</p>
<p>AB should pretty much be for kids who take Precalc as a junior and are decent (but not outstanding) at math. If you have the privilege and talent to be taking Precalc as a sophomore, two years ahead of schedule ahead of the average kid, taking BC shouldn’t even really be an option. </p>
<p>It just doesn’t make any sense - it’s like putting training wheels on an Olympic cyclist’s bike. Why stretch one semester of work into an entire year for a student (as that is what is done in AB) who is so outstanding at math?</p>
<p>I never understood the AB to BC thing. I’d never even heard of it before college confidential. At my school, strong math students go from pre-calc to BC, not-as-strong go to AB. In BC, we finished all of the material in early March and spent the rest of the time doing abstract series stuff. I can’t understand spreading out what we did in less than 3/4 of the year into two for somebody who is good at math. We all do fine on the AP too.</p>
<p>I took them two separate years and it made me a lot better at math than I would have been taking only BC. It’s pretty easy when spread out and you learn the material a lot better. We had a lot more 5’s on the AP test after my school switched to the two year system.</p>
<p>That’s because each student took two AP calculus tests instead of one. From the school’s point of view, that makes it look like more people are taking AP courses and tests, even though they made the calculus courses less rigorous.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe that a student good enough at math to be two grade levels ahead would have trouble with BC in one year at the same pace that a college freshman who is zero grade levels ahead in math takes freshman calculus.</p>