<p>I'm a junior and I want to take dual-enrollment classes at a local university next year. I'm taking the AP Calculus BC test this year, which will place me out of Calculus I and Calculus II. However, the school also has Calculus III (presumably what they call Multivariable Calculus everywhere else) and it's a prerequisite for pretty much everything. But they won't let dual enrollment students take it because they have too many regular undergraduates enrolled in it.
So I was thinking of going to an expensive summer program at a college so I could get this credit and take more difficult college courses next year that would be free and help me finish college faster.
Local colleges a) will not allow high school students to enroll in the summer and b) do not have multivariable calculus.
Is there anything else I could do here? Would it be worth it in this case? I'd get the credit but I'd probably have to quit my job and I wouldn't be able to do anything else productive over the summer.</p>
<p>No, I wouldn’t do it. Calculus III may be a prerequisite for many classes, but I seriously doubt it is required for everything - just the classes you want to take.</p>
<p>There are three things to consider here:</p>
<p>1) cost - you will pay a significant amount of money, plus lose your job, making the true cost even higher</p>
<p>2)opportunities - dropping everything for this class might put you in a position to take other classes, but how will it look on your applications next year? Your academic profile will improve slightly, but your ECs will suffer significantly. That might be OK, but have you thought about where you plan to apply, and what their admission criteria might be? </p>
<p>3) probability of this working. You are planning to take the AP exam this year. You have not done so yet, so you don’t even know how well you will do on it. Further, have you checked to see if the local college will accept credit from the summer program, and if the do, if they will let you into those upper level classes? Also consider the length of the summer program. In many cases, you take a single class all day every day for 3 or 4 weeks. Have you ever experienced that? Will you truly be able to learn and understand the material in that short of a time? If you’re self-studying for the AP exam, in many ways you will be self-taught through 3 semesters worth of Calculus. Will that provide a strong foundation for those advanced classes?</p>
<p>What is your rush with finishing college faster? Do you understand that in many cases extra classes will allow you into more advanced classes, but won’t ultimately help you finish faster, because of other requirements that must be done in order?</p>
<p>Self-learn multivariable calculus and take the harder classes directly. If the college refuses then ask to take the Calculus III Final - if you pass then you are obviously competent to take the harder math courses. If the college still refuses, then obviously that college cares more about money than about education.</p>
<p>I’d have to email the college and see if they’d accept such a credit. I wouldn’t go to a summer program unless they did. I have to self-study the AP exam because we don’t have any sort of AP calculus at my school. </p>
<p>I don’t think we’re allowed to just test out of college classes, and it’s a reasonably prestigious university so I don’t think I’d have the time or intelligence to be able to take one of their finals without a class. (And part of the reason I want to take the class is so I have a better chance of getting in. They only accept like 15 people a year for dual-enrollment. If I don’t get in I’ll go somewhere else, where I’d be able to take Calculus III but I could still move forward with an extra credit.)</p>
<p>My EC’s will suck no matter what I do. Plus school clubs don’t meet during the summer. The horrible EC’s are the main reason I’m concerned about getting ahead academically - I’m not going to have a chance anywhere otherwise.</p>
<p>I want to finish college faster so I don’t have to pay as much in the end, obviously. I don’t see why I couldn’t finish a bachelor’s degree in three years after high school if I got something like 24 credit hours as a senior. The classes I’d be allowed to take without Calc III don’t count toward the math major at that school, and they have certain distribution requirements that dual-enrollment kids can’t take because they’re seminars.</p>
<p>As a general rule of thumb, the more expensive the program, the less presigious it is. The program you’re referring to probably won’t boost your ECs as much as you’d like. What you could do (and what I did) is take college courses online and spend your summer pursuing better opporunities. Since your school doesn’t run summer activities, you could look into better programs or start an EC of your own.</p>