Calculus AB in high school may allow her to avoid having to take the first semester of calculus in college, while covering the material at a slower gentler pace than even a calculus for business majors course in college will.
However, looking back at post #0, the student has not had precalculus, although some trigonometry was included in algebra 2. So perhaps the correct math course is precalculus rather than any kind of calculus.
@ucbalumnus Sadly, there is no way she would want to take AP Calc AB.
@wisteria100 Her school doesn’t offer pre-calculus. They go from Alg2/Trig to the AP courses or reg calculus. I agree that calculus would be a better class for admissions purposes, especially after reading this thread.
@intparent and @ucbalumnus There is no official pre-calc class. After alg 2/trig they can stop or take reg calc or AP calc AB or BC or Ap Statistics or AP computer sci. Not sure why they skip pre-calc
I think that alg 2/trig is pre-calculus. Per Wikipedia: In mathematics education, precalculus is a course with university or high school level algebra and trigonometry that is designed to prepare students for the study of calculus.
Thank you @happy1 That’s good to know.
If the next course after this is some kind of calculus, then it looks like the high school is compressing what it usually four years of high school math into three years.
Over the summer, she may want to check her knowledge of needed precalculus math and review what she does not know:
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi
If she chooses the non-AP calculus course, and it is modeled on a calculus-for-business-majors course (compare textbooks; example: Lial, Greenwell, Ritchey, Calculus with Applications or Goldstein, Lay, Schneider, Asmar, Calculus & Its Applications), then the following version of the above quiz may be better focused on the precalculus math needed for a calculus-for-business-majors course (calculus-for-business-majors usually does not involve trigonometry, or not as much):
@ucbalumnus wow! thanks so much for that info!!
But regular calc would be fine. As it is, she’s looking at 5 AP. Are you certain she can manage that, along with the time devoted to perf arts? I’d think about skipping the AP psych or ES.
What exactly is regular calculus? How is the course described in the syllabus because if it’s not AP, adcoms are going to think it’s watered down for students who don’t want to challenge themselves, which is not a message you want to get across. I’d take Calc AB and consider dropping Psych or ES as lookingforward mentions.
Individual teachers can make a huge difference, so you might want to talk to some parents of Seniors at your school to see if they have a recommendation. Even though it might seem like BC is much harder than AB, at my D’s school the BC teacher is so fabulous that as long as you have time for the volume of work, you will have much better grades and results taking BC.
I would not make a blanket statement about non-AP calc being watered down. The rigor of non-AP calc will vary from HS to HS. My D took honors (non AP) calc because of a schedueling issue – her class was not much different from Calc AB and covered pretty much everything in her college calc 1 class. It can be a good choice for the OP.
I’d suggest the OP and her D discuss the regular calc option with the guidance counselor and current math teacher.
I would strongly encourage Environmental Science and Regular Calc from your list of options. With these classes
he will have 4 years of science and 4 years of math. This would put her in a much stronger position application wise as a senior. Otherwise, she could find herself disappointed in her college acceptances next year. I wish her the very best! I bet she will do better in Calc then she fears 
I would encourage calc over comp sci as well. Even if she doesn’t get the credit she will still have some exposure to the subject and it’ll make the Calculus that’ll be required for business less painful. That goes double if the class is the equivalent of calc 1 extended over a year. The much slower pace will let her absorb more imo. My friend is a freshman business major who wasn’t able to get on the track to take calculus in senior year (due to a teacher who didn’t like his way of solving algebra problems) so he only had a watered down version of precalc going into college. He was able to test out of college algebra but is now struggling with calc 1. If she really likes comp sci see if she could find a community college course to take over the summer or do an online course through edX.org (although she probably won’t get credit).
@thelonliestmonk Here’s a description of the regular calculus class:
Calculus – This course includes an overview of analytic geometry and trigonometry as it applies to the study of functions, graph limits, derivatives and their applications
For those saying to drop AP Psych or AP Env, that’s not an option since she wants to take 4 yrs of science. I need to see if the colleges will see psych as a sci. If not she will have to take AP Env. She actually wanted to take AP physics, her favorite sci, but I think it’s too much. There will be no way she is taking AP Calc. I don’t care what the colleges will think, lol.
@melvin123 I so agree about the difference a good teacher can make. My D hasn’t had the best luck with math teachers. Sometimes her teacher teaches them something and she doesn’t get it. A friend will explain it to my daughter and it makes perfect sense.
I want to thank all of you so much for your thoughts and suggestions. You guys are the best!
That looks like precalculus (or a review of such) plus a small introduction to calculus. If she has been struggling in the high school’s accelerated math sequence you described (four years of math compressed into three years), this may be a way of reinforcing her precalculus knowledge before she has to take calculus in college.
@ucbalumnus Right now she has a B avg in Alg2/Trig. Otherwise she’s an A student. She does well on all the HWs and tests, but has messed up some of the pop quizzes which brought her avg down. I think she gets anxious when a quiz is sprung on them. Also when they have quizzes they are given a short amt of time to finish. I think she is someone who benefits from some time to check over her work. Telling you all of this so you have a sense of what kind of math student she is.