Hi everyone, I was able to earn a 4 on the AP Calc BC exam, which is a 5 for the AP Calc AB exam. However, should I take calc 1 or calc 2 as a college freshman. Is Calc 2 extremely hard? My major, which is biology, only requires one semester of calc 1. Thank you for your advice.
You can try your college’s old calculus 1 and 2 final exams to see if you know the material well by the college’s standards. Calculus 1 at most colleges overlaps mostly with high school calculus AB, while calculus 2 overlaps mostly with the later part of high school calculus BC, though difficulty of problems on exams may vary. Calculus 3 (multivariable calculus) would be new material for you (prerequisite is calculus 2; some colleges allow a high enough AP calculus BC score).
You can also defer the decision until later. If your college/major allows you to use AP credit for its calculus requirement, and you later decide not to do pre-med, then you may not need to take any calculus course at all, saving a schedule space for something else of interest. You may also want to investigate which medical schools actually do require calculus (many do not, according to lists of medical school math requirements found on a web search) and whether you will apply to any of them.
-
Talk with the health professions advisor at your college
-
Not all medical schools will allow applicants to fulfill admission requirements with AP credit. Even those that do generally recommend you supplement any AP credit received with additional credits in the same dept. to be a competitive applicant.
-
For AP credit to be accepted by those med schools that allow AP, credit must appear on your transcript as credit for an actual class offered by your college. (As credit for MTH 200, for example, NOT mathematics- 4 credits)
-
If you received AP credit for calc 1/calc 2 from your college and then you retake calc 1/calc 2 at your college, the college class will be marked as a retake by AMCAS.
-
only a few medical schools require calc 2 or above (JHU, WashU, Harvard, Carle/UIUC, maybe 1 or 2 others)
The difficulty of Calc 2 is in the eye of the beholder, but most people find differential calc harder than integral calc. However, if you’ve taken Calc BC, then you’ve covered most or all of the material in Calc 2 already. BTW, both Ds thought Calc 3 was a great deal easier than Calc 2.
Regardless of whether you decide to take/retake calc 1/calc 2/calc 3, you will need to take a semester of statistics or biostatistics. Any stats class should be taken through the math or biology dept, and not, say, the business college or economics dept.