<p>Do colleges see a large difference between AP Calculus AB and BC?</p>
<p>I don't know about colleges, but I sure do. At my school, anyway, AB is a MUCH easier course.</p>
<p>If both are offered at your school and you opt to take AB, (highly) selective colleges will obviously wonder why did not choose the most rigorous course load.</p>
<p>If your school offers only AB, you won't be at a disadvantage compared to students whose schools offer BC.</p>
<p>well AB is taken before BC, so it all matters if you can eventually take BC in high school</p>
<p>^thats not true for many places. Some schools offer both ab and bc, but ab is not a pre requisite for bc since bc's first semester covers all of ab stuff anyway.</p>
<p>AB isn't always taken before BC. I'm in BC now but didn't take AB. At my school, AB is considered to be significantly easier than BC, but which one you take generally depends on which track you'd been on in math for the rest of HS.</p>
<p>we're not talking difficulty or order here guys...</p>
<p>it really depends on the school
some give 2 credits for BC and 1 for AB, some only give credit for BC</p>
<p>More likely than not, colleges aren't going to care whether you took AB or BC. They're going to look at your transcript and say, "Hey. He took AP Calculus. He really applied himself in math." </p>
<p>At my school, you can't take Calc BC until the year after you take Calc AB, so I'm assuming that they're not going to penalize students for taking AB as it is sometimes a prerequisite for BC.</p>
<p>The thing with AB and BC is that it is dependent on which math track you are in. At least in my school you can't try and "skip up", or even have the option to try and get in from Pre-Calc to BC rather then AB UNLESS you were always in the honors track. The honors track is decided freshman year...</p>
<p>At my school we have a pseudo AP Class called Calc A. The first semester is Honors Precalculus, then AP Calculus A. </p>
<p>Then, the next year, you take BC.</p>
<p>I took the AP exam after that pre-calc session, with just what we learned, and I got a 3. Hmm</p>
<p>If you're going to be a liberal arts major, it's fine to take AB. If you're going to be a math/science major it would be better to take BC if you are permitted to do so without first having taken AB.</p>
<p>sometimes you CAN"T take the MOST RIGOROUS course load due to scheduling...so dont' get freaked out by some of the posters here</p>
<p>people, you can get into many fine schools, even the TOP, without taking the highest math...</p>
<p>In our school, the only way you get to BC is if you took a math course/test waiver over the summer (usually pre-calc honors), even if you were in the highest math track....You have to take AB before BC though (which after being on these boards for the past year, I realized is kinda stupid if BC has AB for the first half of the year)....</p>
<p>
[quote]
If both are offered at your school and you opt to take AB, (highly) selective colleges will obviously wonder why did not choose the most rigorous course load.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is not true if you are not a science/math/engineering major. If you are humanities/art/social sciences, AB is adequate.</p>
<p>my school offers BC, AB, and Honors Calc without a prereq for BC.....but I am horrible at math and If I had my way I wouldnt be taking it at all, haha. I'm already going to be taking 4 AP and 1 Honros humanaties courses next year (and basically will have exhausted the entire history/english curriculum), and I am definitely not going to torture myself with BC but idk whether I should just take AB or Honors.
suggestions?</p>
<p>Yeah kids just jump from pre-calc to calc at my school, and BC's probably a lot harder if you haven't taken ab. So I do think it would be wise to take BC if you are academically able to, it seems a lot harder to me.</p>
<p>At my school you can choose. BC is just one period (in a 2000 student public high school) and it conflicts with orchestra, and it's also known for being an absolutely brutal course. I chose AB, which I've discovered is far easier than I thought it would be. My class is full of "smart jocks" who don't shut up or respect the teacher and are incredibly annoying and always talk about that kegger they just had or that football game coming up. I wish I'd taken BC –*it'd be worth the conflict with orchestra.</p>
<p>Alamode, take AB, it's not that bad. I hear people drop from AB to Honors and think its a joke, you'll be fine in AB.</p>
<p>Yeah, every school is different. For almost 20 years, my school offered AB and BC (where AB was a prerequisite for BC). It worked for sophomores that were taking calculus because they could take AB sophomore year, and BC junior year. Then when I was a sophomore, they created an "ABC" class, where you were prepared to take the BC test at the end of the year, but it was essentially your first year of calculus. It was experimental for my year, but since we performed well, with a 94% pass rate, the school has kept it.</p>