Does taking Calculus Honors before AP Calculus AB look bad?

I’m a sophomore deciding my schedule for next year, and I was wondering whether or not you think taking Calculus Honors before AP Calculus AB looks bad? I’m already planning to take:

AP Computer Science Principles
AP US History
AP Chemistry
Physics Honors
Spanish 4
English 4 Honors
AP Calc AB or Honors Calc?

I’m worried that if I take AP Calc and AP Chem at the same time, I won’t be able to do well in either. I think taking Calculus Honors junior year, and then AP Calc AB senior year would be much more doable. I’m planning on majoring in Chemical Engineering, and applying to top 20 schools. But, I’m worried that this will look bad to colleges, especially since I’m going into a very science and math heavy major. Do you recommend I take AP Calc or Honors Calc?

What does Honors Calc cover?

Talk to your GC to see if there is overlap between the two classes. At my D’s HS, it was honors pre-calc before AP Calc. The H Calc course would have been too redundant so it wouldn’t have been allowed to take honors calc and then AB.

Honors Calc covers Limits and Continuity, Differentiation, Applications of Differentiation, and Integration. AP Calc covers all that plus Applications of Integration, and Differential Equations and Slope Fields. Besides the last two units I mentioned, they cover the same topics, but apparently AP Calc just goes more in depth (i.e. harder problems, more tests and quizzes).

It looks like Honors Calc is for people who don’t plan to take Calc AB and Cal BC. If you plan to take Cal AB and Cal BC then don’t take Honors Calc because it’s not necessary.

I still feel like I wouldn’t be able to handle AP Chem and AP Calc at the same time, whereas AP Chem and Calc Honors seems much more doable. If I went with the latter, do you think colleges would look down upon that?

For engineering you need to try to shoot for the highest level of math offered at your school, and to me it would look like repeating a course if your school allowed you to take honors calc and then AB senior year.

Could you take AP stats junior year and then save AP calc for senior year?

YMMV but my D thought AP calc was very straight forward. Chem and physics were much more challenging.

if you’ve taken Honors pre-calc and did well in it, AP Calc AB is a breeze. I doubt if you could take Honors Calc and then Calc AB, it would be like taking Honors English 11 and then AP English Language. Essentially the same course.

Calculus AB covers over a year in high school about a semester and perhaps a little more of what a college calculus course covers. So it should not be excessively difficult. Calculus BC (immediately after precalculus) would cover material at full speed relative to college calculus.

Taking a less rigorous calculus course followed by calculus AB could look like a grade-grubbing partial repeat.

The thing is, the teacher for AP Calc is extremely hard, and he makes it one of the hardest AP classes in the school. AP Chem is also considered one of the hardest AP classes in the school (because of the teacher and difficulty of content), so I doubt I could handle both at the same time. Do you have any other suggestions for what I should do?

For a potential engineering students at a T20 college, not talking AP Calc is not an option if you expect your application to be taken seriously. I see 2 options: Move AP Chem to senior year or suck it up.

I’m inclined to go with the latter, particularly if you are planning AP Physics C as a senior. If you “doubt [you] could handle both at the same time,” then you would likely have issues when you have 5 classes/semester in college, where at least 4 will be of a similar workload requirement.

These things vary by teacher and school and also by student. I can say my d19, who is planning a chemical engineering major, took AP Calc BC, AP Chem and Honors Physics as a junior at her school. BC was not difficult for her. Probably actually less stressful than PreCalc Honors. AP Chem was more stressful and a lot of work. Honors Physics was a breeze. She enjoyed all of the classes, even AP Chem as difficult as it was, and taking them all helped her solidify her choice to pursue a Chemical Engineering major in college.
I agree with Skieurope that if you are hesitant, it would be better to take the honors Physics and Calc AB junior year and postpone AP Chem until senior year.

Are you taking Pre-Calc now?

unlike in science where you might take Chemistry before AP chemistry, in HS you take Pre-calc before AP Calc AB (or BC).

As a sophomore right now who is taking AP Chem and AP Calc AB at the same time with 3 other APs and 3 AICE courses, and especially both Calc and chem taught by the hardest teachers, it is not that bad. At the start of the year, it seemed like a breeze, however, during this time, all of my mock tests start to clash together and it makes it hard to concentrate on other activities like extracurriculars.

You want to end senior year with Calc BC or Multivariate Calc 3 and AP Chem and Physics BC for chemistry engineering. How you get there is between you and your school. My sons school is all honors and they start physics first as a freshman, then chemistry then biology. So as a senior he took Physics BC. Just create a path to end with those subjects. But Calc AB for a chemical engineering applicant is weak. It’s better then no Calc at all but depends on what colleges you are applying to.

Go to some college websites and see what the recommended classes are then surpass that.

Here is the thing to be an engineering major at a university your schedule will be much more rigorous than taking ap chem and ap ab calc. AB calc is babycakes compared to the advanced math you will be required to take. Your schedule will be filled with stem classes that tend to be weed out classes.

Thanks for the advice. The only problem is my school doesn’t offer AP Physics C, just AP Physics 1. Do you think I could take AP Physics 1 senior year and then just self study Physics C at the same time?

Then I see no reason not to just move AP Chem to senior year. But as I said before, and echoed by others, AP Chem and AP Cal concurrently, regardless of how demanding the individual teachers are, is a cakewalk compared to first-year engineering classes in college.

AP Physics C:Mechanics - yes

AP Physics C: E&M - no

Go talk to your teachers for next year this week. Adresss the issues straight on. I kept hearing from my kids that teacher so and so us so hard and mean etc etc. Once they met with the teachers they became their favorite teachers. The class is only hard when you don’t know the material well enough in high school. You can always get what the teacher is going to teach next the weekend prior. Teachers want to teach to students that want to learn.

But as above it doesn’t seem like you have an issue. Just take the most rigor that your school offers and do well in those courses.