<p>(Sorry for the Rebecca Black reference, by the way :o) </p>
<p>Will it be more beneficial to self-study BC Calculus for the upcoming AP exam in May (without an AB class), or would it be a better decision to prep for the AMC/AIME in February (I don't have time to do both)? Before, I was leaning towards Calc, but now that I think about it, qualifying for AIME (and maybe USAMO) would probably look better to colleges, as well as be much more beneficial to my math career in the long run. Plus, I'll probably get a lot more out of calculus by taking the actual class rather than learning it by myself and gleaning over topics that might be important in higher math. Anyways, that's just my take on the question right now. Your thoughts??? Thanks :D</p>
<p>That was an underhanded trick to get me to click on this.</p>
<p>If I were you, I would do the USAMO. Anyways if you are going to self study, it shouldn’t be a core Math class like BC. Since you are a sophmore, you can still take BC your junior year and then MultiVariable your senior year.</p>
<p>I would recommend doing the math competitions instead of doing BC calculus. However, I would warn you that making the USAMO takes a lot of preparation. I would estimate you’d need to spend at least 2 hours a day for a year to get to around that level, although it depends on how much math experience you’ve had and how talented you are. (Qualifying for the AIME is easier: my guess is that you’d need to spend about an hour a day for one or two months.)</p>
<p>However, if you put in the time and do it, I think it will be extremely rewarding. I can’t really imagine how different my college education would be if I hadn’t done math competitions. The things I learned studying for math competitions have helped me in about 3/4 of the math and computer science classes I’ve taken so far. The knowledge you get from preparing for the competitions will probably give you a nice head start if you major in math or a related subject.</p>
<p>The best resource for studying for math competitions is the website [Art</a> of Problem Solving (AoPS)](<a href=“http://www.artofproblemsolving.com%5DArt”>http://www.artofproblemsolving.com). Top math competitions students from around the country and even other countries discuss problems and give advice on their forums, and the books and classes they offer are very valuable. In particular, their book “Art of Problem Solving Volume II” is really amazing. There are a lot of tricks you need to learn in math competitions (like finding the sum and product of the roots of a polynomial from its coefficients), and this book describes many of these tricks and has lots of practice problems.</p>
<p>Do whichever one you’d rather do. Think, “Which would I pick if college had never been invented?” and do that one. Personally, I think that Muta has a point- you’ve got plenty of time to take Calc BC. Do what you like.
(Of course, if you’d rather do neither and you’re only doing it for college, that was probably not particlularly helpful…)</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies, everyone. I’ve been changing my mind a LOT about what APs to self-study and what not, but I think I’ve FINALLY made up my mind to do AIME/USAMO. And yes, @MutaRiSC, that WAS an underhanded reference to get you to click on this :P</p>