Hi! I have to make a hard decision soon about my schedule next year. I will be a junior in high school and hope to attend an Ivy League or top 20 school in the future. Freshman year, I tested into honors geometry, a sophomore class, which has put me a year ahead in math. Despite this, I do not plan to pursue math as a major; I am much more interested in politics/history. I am also taking APUSH, which has two periods each taught by a different teacher. One of these teachers I had freshman year and was his favorite student. The other is a former teacher from my school who is returning. I was originally placed into this (semi)new teacher’s class, but the teacher I have a good relationship with requested me. My counselor has given me the option to chose which class. If I chose the teacher I know, I would not be able to take AP Calc BC, though, based on the scheduling. Instead I would take AP Calc AB this year and one semester of BC senior year as well as Differential Equations senior year (the class above calc at my school with the reputation as an easy/fun class.) If I chose the new-ish teacher, it would be a gamble because no one knows how easy/difficult she will be or if she will like me, but I could take AP Calc BC. I’m wondering what I should do in terms of how colleges will see it. Will they look down on not taking BC when I had the opportunity to, even if I am not interested in STEM or taking two years of calculus? Also, the history teacher I know is a very hard teacher, but a subjective grader so I am not too worried. I would also plan on having him write my college letter of rec (he is known for writing some of the best in the school). Would a great letter of rec be more valuable than having BC junior year?? Any input/advice is appreciated!! Thanks so much!!
Good teacher + calc AB junior year, BC+ diff eqs senior year sounds like the perfect combination.
Btw, AB Jr year, BC Sr year would be most rigorous at most schools. No college in the us would see any fault in your math sequence of it’s AB then BC+diff eqs.
thank you so much!
Take calc AB. And just wondering, if you took geometry in freshman year, shouldn’t you be taking pre-calculus? If you are skipping pre-calc, then DEFINITELY take AB.
Yeah I’m confused too. If you took Geometry in 9th, then the usual class for 10th is Alg 2/Trig, 11th pre-Calc and 12th AP Calc. What did you take in 10th? These variations on math classes is killing me…
I took precalc in 9th because I tested out of algebra 1 and 2. It’s kind of confusing but basically at my school freshman honors algebra is algebra 2 and then you take geometry, precalc, calc on the honors track, but no on the honors track is algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2/trig, precalc
You’re not making sense. First you said you took Geometry in 9th, now you’re saying you took Pre-Calc in 9th which means you took some sort of Calc in 10th.
What did you take in 9th and what did you take in 10th? You’re going into 11th right?
Yes. 9th=geometry. 10th=precalc
AP calc AB. And then senior year, you can take whatever you want.