<p>I think I am still in favor of the option with the honors courses (2? B? Clearly I would have failed critical reading!) </p>
<p>But how about option 3/C? Sophomore year take Honors Algebra 2 and regular Geometry (everybody is right, geometry is the least important math - it could be almost like a blow-off elective). Junior year take honors trig. Then as a senior, take honors precalc or calc or AP calc, bearing in mind that precalc might be totally unnecessary.</p>
<p>Well, I can't say what is BETTER on an absolute scale, but the advantages: If you take calculus, you're doing more justice to your math education, period. If you take honors courses, it boosts your GPA more. </p>
<p>Honestly, please try to get him to take honors courses AND take calculus. He can do it -- anxiousmom's post is a very important point, which is that honors courses don't have to be more work, they can actually be the same or LESS, just less watered down. It's kind of how graduate courses in college are way tougher in terms of material, but less annoying HW, no redundancy, etc. Always try higher level stuff -- it tends actually not to be that different in difficulty really. Lacking honors means worse GPA, which sucks. Lacking calculus => your son doesn't learn a very important analytical skill before college. </p>
<p>Educationally, calculus wins. For college, maybe just take the honors classes. If possible, please put him through both - I'm betting he can do it, and still have fun -- he's after all not flunking Algebra 1 or anything.</p>
<p>Calculus opens more doors. It looks better. And as a freshman, you really don't know where your kid will end up.</p>
<p>"Calculus opens more doors. It looks better. "</p>
<p>While I favor calculus, I will not agree that it's so clear. Depends on what schools one aims for. The girl from my school with THE best acceptance rate to HYPS, etc was A. ranked lower than I, B. Had no calculus [as compared with my having math well beyond calculus before senior year], but C. had much better EC type things, and was ranked very high. </p>
<p>If your goal is GETTING INTO COLLEGE, it might be a good idea to inflate your GPA as much as possible, like she did - she was ranked no. 4 in the class, and had good EC's, and the rank 3 guy got into Harvard too. Math level couldn't be the most important factor in admissions. </p>
<p>I understand what I gave was very high profile stuff, but it definitely is enough to convince me that the above is not clear at all, and it seems more likely a high GPA will help [in fact, EVEN MORE SO among lower ranked schools, who may do more explicitly stat-based admission, unlike the more subjective top privates].</p>
<p>geeps....on your list, I know many, many kids who have been admitted the past 4 yrs w/o even having pre- calc.....I like Marian's perspective on this and unless your son is aspiring to top 20 schools/ivies/ etc, higher GPA will trump math level.........imo</p>
<p>Your son is already "behind" for Calculus. The sequence at my kids high school is:</p>
<p>Geometry Honors
Algebra II/Trigonometry Honors
Pre-calculus Honors
AP Calculus BC</p>
<p>Note: You are expected to take the Honors classes in order to take Calc BC. It is highly recommended that you take Honors Classes if you want to take Calc AB.</p>
<p>Don't skimp on math. You will regret it in future years. If he is going to double up, it should be the exact same classes he would take if he were not doubling up. If he can't handle that, then he shouldn't be doubling up.</p>
<p>I was at a math competition today. One of the team's leaders teaches math at one of the local universities. He said that kids should NOT take calculus in High School. It is much more rigorous in College. At the HS level, they are taught to work the problems, but do not really "understand" it. That hampers them if they go further with mathematics. If they are just a user of math and not likely to go further, then high school calc is probably ok.</p>
<p>Colleges want to know that the kid took advantage of what they could. If your son takes all honors math classes, but doesn't make it into Calc, I'm guessing that it will be a minor factor, if at all, for the schools you mentioned. You have some time, why don't you ask the admissions office of 2 or 3 of the schools, and see what they think.</p>
<p>"One of the team's leaders teaches math at one of the local universities. He said that kids should NOT take calculus in High School. It is much more rigorous in College"</p>
<p>I've heard this many times...and don't think it's good advice at all for most students. Getting exposure to calculus early is a great idea -- instead of being stagnant. It may not be as tough as in college...but even college calculus ain't thorough enough. For that, you gotta take an elementary analysis course or something. </p>
<p>If you want a thorough exposure to calculus, take the high school course, then spend time reading Apostol's book or something for heaven's sake. Don't wait and slow down our math education just because high school is easier than college...</p>
<p>I also agree that having calculus is important for competitive colleges. Perhaps you should speak with the school's guidance counsel about it or the head of the math department to assess which is the more rigorous program at his school. </p>
<p>Here was my daughter's sequence</p>
<p>9th: Algebra
10th: Geometry, Alg II (perhaps honors, but I don't think so)
11th: Honors Pre-calc
12th: AP Calc BC with a 5 on the test</p>
<p>Her school does not have summer classes and won't allow you to take at another school, as they don't feel it would be as rigourous. </p>
<p>She had to give up an elective to double up but she was feeling ambitious toward the goal of calculus for some reason. In addition, she was taking AP history, english and science classes for a total of about 6 AP's and doing well. </p>
<p>In college she ended up doing a Mathematics/CS degree and just got her first acceptance to a PdD program.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with too many Business programs at schools you mention, but the ones I know about tend to be lighter weight, and you mostly dabble around with a bit of accounting, a bit of econ, a bit of stats, a bit of marketing. And many competitive schools don't even offer business to undergraduates. Rather the student will study Economics or Commerce/Enterprenuership. But he shouldn't decide his major this early (nor you for him, I hope!) He should start on an ambitious program, but adjust in according to how he is doing.</p>
<p>"I also agree that having calculus is important for competitive colleges."</p>
<p>Of course, qualified with the fact that a high GPA with good honors math courses is better than a lower GPA without the honors courses and having calculus.</p>
<p>"Of course, qualified with the fact that a high GPA with good honors math courses is better than a lower GPA without the honors courses and having calculus."</p>
<p>GPA is unweighted at my son's school...would that change your opinion?</p>
<p>"Your son is already "behind" for Calculus. The sequence at my kids high school is:</p>
<p>Geometry Honors
Algebra II/Trigonometry Honors
Pre-calculus Honors
AP Calculus BC</p>
<p>Note: You are expected to take the Honors classes in order to take Calc BC"</p>
<p>son's schools prerequisite for calculus is a"b-" or better is advanced math, which is Trig and Analytic Geometry according to the program of studies booklet. Pre-calc can be taken with just a C- in advanced math. So basically, no honors courses have to be taken to get to calculus...just that you start in Algebra 2 as a freshmen.</p>
<p>Algebra 2(or honors)
Geometry(or honors)
Advanced Math(or honors)
pre-calc(c- in adv math) or calc(b- in adv math) or AP calc(rec.)</p>
<p>I'm sort of leaning towards the honors Algebra 2 and Regular Geometry as a soph next year. That will give him the honors class and put him on the path to calculus.</p>
<p>I would recommend investigating the difference between "honors" and "non-honors" math at your high school. At our school, there was a huge difference between the two tracks. I would not recommend the "non-honors" track just to double up on courses - your son may lose more than he gains. I agree with other posters recommending taking the honors level Geometry and Alg II in highschool, a pre-calculus program the summer before senior year at an area college (it shouldn't require much time), then moving on to AP Calculus his senior year.</p>
<p>Sometimes the regular track classes have disadvantages. They might be full of lower-achieving older students, rather than bright and willing age-mates. You probably don't want your sophomore to be in classes with kids who only got to algebra 2 as seniors. Which brings me to the other potential issue of classroom discipline problems in regular track classes. Just something to consider.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>One of the team's leaders teaches math at one of the local universities. He said that kids should NOT take calculus in High School. It is much more rigorous in College.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>I agree that calculus is much harder in college--mainly because the course goes so quickly! I think that it makes sense to take calculus in high school and then start in Calculus 1 in college. It's repitition in the early going, but it gets hard pretty quick.</p>
<p>"They might be full of lower-achieving older students, rather than bright and willing age-mates. You probably don't want your sophomore to be in classes with kids who only got to algebra 2 as seniors."</p>
<p>This is a very good point...another angle to consider. When I brought up doubling up in math next year, his current algebra 1 teacher agreed, but thought non honors might be better since he was taking 2 maths.</p>
<p>I need to find out the difference in work load between honors and non honors and go from there. It really is tough trying to balance what is best for my son and what might look better to the colleges for admission.. they are certainly tied together, but not entirely.</p>
<p>Always go with what is best for your son.</p>
<p>Kids get into great schools without having had calculus in high school. We have a thread on CC about that issue a lot. </p>
<p>My feeling is that you don't need to have calculus to get into a great school--but there is nothing to says "college prep" like calculus.</p>
<p>"Kids get into great schools without having had calculus in high school. We have a thread on CC about that issue a lot.</p>
<p>My feeling is that you don't need to have calculus to get into a great school--but there is nothing to says "college prep" like calculus."</p>
<p>Yeah...as I said, 1 out of 3 of the people from my school going to Harvard, who also got into Princeton, didn't take calculus. Obviously a specific case, but honestly it shows to me that calculus ain't the most important thing. She had something they wanted, and it didn't really matter in the end what her calculus level was like. </p>
<p>"I need to find out the difference in work load between honors and non honors and go from there. It really is tough trying to balance what is best for my son and what might look better to the colleges for admission.. they are certainly tied together, but not entirely."</p>
<p>Geeps -- your words about the honors courses not being weighted MIGHT change my opinion, if I were convinced that schools wouldn't automatically weight them anyway. If not, then getting to calculus seems very clearly better. However!!!!! Try to get your son to take the honors courses AND get to calculus! I know he can do it, and in all seriousness I'm pretty sure [do look into it] honors courses aren't more work -- in fact, may be clearly less work, due to the lack of busy work.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"They might be full of lower-achieving older students, rather than bright and willing age-mates. You probably don't want your sophomore to be in classes with kids who only got to algebra 2 as seniors."
[/quote]
Another related issue to consider is the social aspect. Does your son make friends easily? Are classes in your school evenly blended or would he be with older kids? One year only, we moved D to a regular track class due to teacher issues. She was a sophomore in with juniors and seniors. That year, she lost the support of being able to call friends to ask questions or work on problems. It was kind of isolating (but worth it in this case.)</p>
<p>Follow up. Some responses from admissions. I E-males about 10 colleges, 4 e-mailed back with the first hour. Still waiting on 5.</p>
<p>Villanova:</p>
<p>"It is really irrelevant which math the student takes as a senior, as long as they have taken four years of the subject. Regarding the question of honors versus non-honors, we always want to see the student challenging themselves to the best of their ability. Always risk a B grade for a more difficult class but never risk a C grade. The student must find a balance between the strength of their course load and their ability to do well."</p>
<p>Interesting..basically stating out that a "B" in honors class would be better than an "A" in non honors..but don't get a "C". Also, they find it "irrelevant" the level of math reached as a Sr. </p>
<p>Stonehill:</p>
<p>"I know this sounds like a cop out, but he needs to take whatever he is
most comfortable with. In the end, it is not that much of a difference.</p>
<p>We do take into consideration if a student has taken honors level math
courses, especially when they want to major in the Business department.
It is helpful. We also take into consideration how well they are doing.
If he is taking honors but getting C's and B-'s, then he will not be too
competitive. If he is taking lower-level but getting solid all A's,
then we will wonder why he didn't move up a level. He needs to
re-evaluate his path every single year and take what is challenging but
comfortable." </p>
<p>So, Villanova states a "B" in an honors class is better than an "A" in non honors...yet Stonehill is stating that a "B-" in an honors class would not be competitive?</p>
<p>Umass:</p>
<p>"Thank you for your e-mail. Generally speaking, your son does not need calculus,
however he will need precalculus/triginometry when applying to the University."</p>
<p>Well, pre-calc is not a requirement according to their web site.</p>
<p>Some good info here..but also leading to more confusion. I'm interested what the other schools will say.</p>
<p>Interesting that the admissions officers say what I've always believed--that for admissions purposes, you shouldn't take an honors class if you can't get an A or B in it.</p>