I’m an international student who recently moved to the US. I’m a junior. I didn’t take any placement exams except for Maths (it was an Hons Algebra II exam). I thought I did pretty well, since I used to learn most of the stuff - but it turns out the school has dropped me down to Algebra 2. Also, my counsellor says it’s too late to change classes and that my placement exam decides my maths level… what do I do?
In my old school I have been practicing (almost a year) on the IB Maths SL course which was pretty challenging. But I skipped some of the basic maths level (but can usually solve it). Sometimes I stumble upon things I didn’t learn in Algebra 2 - but it’s relatively easy and not challenging. I searched up the syllabus, it turns out I learned most of the stuff like 1-2 years ago, and my IB course level practice that I did in Sophomore has covered few topics in Pre-Calc and Calc.
Basically feel like I should be doing Pre-Calc or higher, I feel like I have more potential than basic maths level…
Despite all this, I think that Algebra II can help with SAT practice (covering basic stuff that I probably forgot or never learned), but it’s not challenging (and repetitive)…
I heard it also helps with college to be doing Calc in senior year?
99% of colleges assume that you can start with Calculus in College. So taking Pre-calc next year is the "normal’ progression ( but not honors).
Taking a pre-calc class (makes sure the school approves it) over the summer may be a good idea if you want to do anything in STEM in college. If not, pre-calc as a senior is fine.
Indicate that you were in math SL, starting calculus; bring the curriculum and explain part of the stuff on the test was from 2-3 years ago for you so you’d forgotten it but it doesn’t mean you hadn’t mastered it, and how this can be seen from your doing better on the precalculus segments than on the basic algebra segment.
(Assuming you did do ok on the precalculus segments of the test).
If there’s no space in precalculus honors nor calculus at your school, ask if you can take the class online. Being our parents. Us high schools are see to parents raising a fuss when some disservice is done to their kids.
For someone who was in IB Maths SL I agree algebra2 (not honors) would be slow, boring, and repetitive… Not to mention pointless.
Depending on when school started, I can see why they say it might be a bit late. DD is in Week 3 of this school year, and anyone swapping now will have missed quite a bit. Having said that, can you get a parent to make an appointment with the guidance counselor? If you take a good honest look at your placement score, do you think it would warrant pre-calculus? I would only escalate with the GC if you are getting perfect scores on everything in class, and finding all of it easy (not just some of it).
If you want to go into STEM, it helps to be in Calculus senior year. It is more important to protect your GPA, though, so really make sure a move up would be about skill and not ego.
the student was accelerated to IB Math SL (meaning they were already taking precalculus and may have started on basic analysis). I don’t think it’s a matter of ego but rather of the GC not knowing what to make of the student’s curriculum and not realizing the test tested topics that were too basic (and, in math as in many things, you may well be able to handle complex topics but have forgotten something you’d studied in the 7th grade, which is when OP took some of the content on the math test).
Parents should get involved and if it’s not possible for the student to take Precalculus Honors at school then either through dual enrollment (if it’s free - generally called “college algebra”) or online/through virtual school, whichever is cheapest.