Hey, first post on here.
I’m currently a junior at a very competitive school. in my freshman year i decided to credit by exam to get ahead in math. Precalculus was fine for me last year but now that i’m in Calculus i’m having a much harder time. I’ve asked counselors, teachers, etc. but everyone seems to have a different opinion on wether or not i should drop the class. My counselor, for example, is trying to tell me that it looks bad if you don’t take 4 consecutive math classes, while my teacher is telling me it won’t matter because i’m already done with my credits and 2 years ahead in math. I’ve confirmed that the drop would not be shown on my transcript and i would instead take an easier class like ap French. Just very conflicted right now and not sure if colleges would frown upon not taking a math class junior year. I should also add that my school doesn’t allow us to transfer into AP stat so there is technically no other math class for me to go to. Calc has been way harder than i expected and id rather not have to fight my way to get a C.
What universities are you thinking about applying to next year?
cornell, vanderbilt, MIT, Ut Austin, NYU etc, going into CS or Architecture
It may look strange to a college admission reader at MIT, Cornell, etc. to see a student two grade levels ahead in math stopping at precalculus when calculus is available to the student.
What is your plan if you drop it? You can’t just avoid it forever with the areas that interest you.
I agree, not a good look.
Can you get extra tutoring so that you can do well in the class?
You want to drop Calc AB and not take any math this year? What about next year? I hear you, you’re struggling BUT Cornel and MIT among others will also be a struggle. Not taking four years of math in high school will raise STEM school eyebrows. You wanted to accelerate, so I think it’s best to stick with your plan. Find someone to help you out. If that’s not possible watch Prof. Leonard on YouTube. He’s a phenomenal (in my opinion) math instructor. It will take work and you might not get an A but if STEM is in your future it is worth the battle.
If you want STEM, especially CS and especially at that level, find a tutor and stick with calc this year then next. You’re 2 years ahead and will need calc this year and calc or discrete math senior year.
Or, reconsider majoring in stem, especially CS (stopping at precalculus sophomore year will be a huge red flag).
Or, see if a local community college offers DiscreteMath that doesn’t have calc as a pre-req.
i figured as much but i’m also not trying to drop my GPA in the process.
the plan is to focus on SAT this year and continue calc AB or BC next year, giving me an additional year to grasp the concepts
What about taking AB through an online school, maybe BYU? Not ideal, but you can take it at your own pace—slow it down so that it’s manageable.
MIT and other top schools were very clear they want to see a math, Science, and English every year in High school at the info sessions I have been to. They really cared less what happened in Middle School. I wish middle school parents would believe me on that.
Your school counselor is giving you the right info for the schools you want to apply to. Your teacher is a great teacher, but is not up on admissions to the tier of schools you are considering.
Does your school only offer Prob and Stats AP and Calc AP?
No Calc Honors class?
If calc AP is hard you may want the teacher to help you access where there are some gaps that may have happened during Covid. Algebra II and Pre-Calc need to lay that foundation for you to be successful. It sounds like you tested out of Algebra II and perhaps the Pre-Calc teacher did not share with the Calc teacher where she left off (unless it is the same teacher).
One option is taking a Dual enrollment math class in the Spring or next summer.
Or get through Calculus. That is not going away and it is better to take it in HS if possible than see it for the first time in college. Math gets really hard for 99% of us at some point. For some it is fractions, others it is Algebra, and for some it is Calc. This may be the first time something is really hard for you to learn. That is okay. Mathematicians call it a production struggle. Get a handle on your gaps in learning with your teacher and sign up for any extra help being offered. Consider a tutor if that is an option for your family or Kahn academy Calc, if needed. College Board also has support pages for you to access. I think you can probably claw your way through this and come out with a respectable grade, an AP score that will make you proud, a better foundation in math, and something to write you college essay about next year.
And for some, it is real analysis…
Calculus AB in high school covers about 1/2 to 2/3 of what a year of single variable calculus in college covers. I.e. it is a slower gentler introduction to calculus than calculus in college will be. If you avoid it in high school, then you will go to to college having to take it at full speed (like calculus BC, except at MIT, where the first math course 18.01 covers all of single variable calculus or calculus BC in one semester).
Dropping it will indeed look strange. However, for MIT getting a B or a C in calculus will also look strange.
This is what occurs to me also.
Cornell or MIT would make calculus look like a rather easy class. As @ucbalumnus correctly pointed out, “18.01 covers all of single variable calculus or calculus BC in one semester”, and it was the easiest math course that I took in four years at MIT. 18.02 (multivariate calculus) and 18.06 (Linear Algebra) were the only courses that were even close to being as easy.
What grade did you get in precalculus?
If you want to attend a university at the “Cornell, MIT” level, then you need to learn how to deal with really hard classes. To me the most obvious path forward is to get a tutor and try to do well in Calculus. If you succeed then you have learned something about how to approach a tough class.
What do you mean by “having a much harder time”? I understand the concepts are new and take practice to master. But how much time are you spending doing so, and is this what you mean by harder? A college math/science class would meet 3x/week and a rule of thumb is 2-3 hours outside class doing homework, studying, and extra practice problems for every class hour. So are you spending 1.5 hours every weeknite on calc and another few hours on the weekend?
A lot of HS kids are accustomed to getting by on native smarts but this comes to an end eventually. Certainly it will end in colleges of the caliber you mention. If you haven’t been spending the requisite time from the start of the semester then all that’s happened is you’ve now got a glimpse of what your academic future will look like.
I would be less concerned with how this looks and more focused on whether math or something dependent on math like CS or Architecture is the right field for you. As others have pointed out, you are going to have to cover this material at some point, and the math classes are only going to get harder in college.
A “C” in Calculus your Junior year of HS will probably be the end of your application to the schools you listed, but that may not be such a bad thing. Beyond those schools, the state schools are going to be brutal in the freshman math and science courses because the states use them as “weed outs”. I know my college experience was in a different era, but I would need advanced math to count up all the people I knew who showed up on campus as some kind of STEM major, and then got a D or F in Intro to Chem, or Calculus 101 or some other freshman weed out, and had to switch.
Two things happen when someone walks out of their Intro to Chem final at the end of the first semester knowing they got destroyed on it. First, they are going to have to change their major, and second, they are going to spend the next three and a half years digging their GPA out of the hole they made their first semester. Some schools have students jump right into the major, so a STEM major could have 2 or 3 C’s, D’s or F’s before they even realize STEM is not for them.
My advice would be two fold: 1) buckle down and spend however much time it takes to get a “B” or better in that Calculus course, and 2) strongly re-evaluate if you want to do a STEM major.
CTDad speaks words of wisdom. OP- if you are used to being the top math student, always accelerated, etc. it may be something of a mindshift for you to consider other majors and other paths that are not math intensive. And that’s ok.
I know dozens of happy, successful (and some quite affluent) adults who never took calculus. Never.
Agree that getting a tutor, or supplementing your classes with an online, slow, “here’s how this works” tutorial could help you. I think taking a year off from math- even if you are already ahead- means that NEXT year is going to be that much tougher- if you’re not using it, a lot of these concepts are going to start to erode and your skills won’t be sharp.
I had a calculus requirement before I started grad school (had never taken it in HS) and it was brutal. But I got through it. You can too- maybe just slow it down until you master the concepts?
My advice is, since the OP haven’t taken pre-caculus, take that now, and try calc again next year.
Hopefully, there are enough math classes past Calc for him to take in junior and senior year…
The OP took it last year.
You are right, I misread his posts. In that case, I would suggest taking another non-calc math class, if available. Discrete math, Statistics, Number Theory, Linear Algebra.
Sometimes the brain needs time to fully process the previous topics and get ready for Calculus.