My son was born an engineer so it was easy getting him interested in math and science. LOL
My kid is careful to tell me that he is not an engineer, even if he is a CS major :-). And last summer, he took an internship just to be sure that he doesnāt want to do engineering for the rest of his life. He had a wonderful time, but told me upfront in the first week of the internship, that he is now sure that he doesnāt want to become an engineer :-). I am happy whatever it is, as long as he is happy and can make a living.
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No arguments from me on this one. Of course the rationale is that colleges care, and if junior is to have any hope at an elite he needs to be recruited. It is all so circular.
Iāve seen meh public school education (in what is supposed to be an excellent school district) and excellent private school education. Thereās a lot in between. Very hit or miss. Home priorities without question influence outcomes. But keep in mind there are a lot of capable children growing up in less resourced and/or badly āprioritizedā households, through no fault of their own. If public schools canāt address their educational needs, then all but the most self-driven of them will be a lost resource to our communities. Thatās not ok in my book.
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Any comments on the following scenario? Student had alg 1 in 5th grade. Took AB as a freshman per the schoolās math track. Now a sophomore finishing BC, all As. Has access to dual enrollment, but leaning toward AP Stats for junior year. Wants to chill. I worry he might be completely bored in AP stats. He says he feels sufficiently challenged in calc, just not that interested right now. The teaching might be on the dry side. He might do something similar w/physics, taking regular physics right now, but junior year may take AP 1 rather than C (this doesnāt even make sense); I fear a similar result, boredom.
I guess the question has two parts - if he takes stats, will the break in calc sequence be an issue as he would presumably take multivariable senior year? (Linear alg also an option.) Second, to what extent could this impact admissions, if at all?
In guiding, I am trying to find the balance between avoiding unnecessary stress put upon him and challenging himself. (Along with being as hands-off as possible in his course choices.)
He is not likely to have the sort of full EC resume necessary for elite colleges, so perhaps college admission landscape may already be limited, though I suppose thereās a little time yet, things could change. All we know so far is that heās thinking heād like an urban environment and a collaborative rather than competitive student body. Obviously a bright kid but unsure of what he might want to do, with a big helping of teenage ennui. Hoping a summer job will do him some good.
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Donāt most US states require high school teachers to have both subject knowledge (e.g. a bachelorās degree or substantial college course work in the subject to be taught) and teacher training / credential?
Obviously, teaching the most advanced high school students (who may be able to do college junior level work in the subject while in high school) to the level they could reach would require more and more advanced subject knowledge than teaching high school students at more ordinary levels (+0 to +1 in math).
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If he has already had calculus, he may find physics C with calculus more interesting and actually easier than physics 1 without calculus. Plus, it will let him see the usefulness of calculus to other subjects.
Also, if a calculus-based statistics course is available instead of AP statistics, the same may apply there.
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A lot of depends on what he wants to do.
AP Stat gets some discount in terms of rigor from at least some of the colleges that we heard from.
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I think itās clear that highly-competitive schools view AP stats as less rigorous than calc. But, for the student who already took calc BC, to what extent would two years of dual enrollment math be expected rather than just one, and at what level of admission competitiveness? Not MIT/Caltech level. (He is a long, long way from contemplating a list.)
Lin Alg is a really good choice, and has a lot of applicability.
But separately, what does he want to do in College?
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Thanks, thatās helpful about Lin Alg.
No clue what he wants to do in college. So much growing to do, we hope, in the next year and a half. He has interests in many areas though seems to listen to his friends more than his parents (shocking, I know). For my part, Iām just trying to keep doors open so he can pursue whatever dream when he figures it out.
If your student has interest in computer science, taking some programming classes will help put those math skills to the test. Lin Alg and Discrete Math are actually very useful courses for CS folks. At UMD, thereās a great deal of overlap between the math requirements for a math major and a CS major. As a result, a good number of folks major in both.
One of my sons took a calc-based Stats class in HS (then took the AP Stat exam) and the other took AP Stat. Both got As in the class and a 5 on the exam, but the course content and knowledge learned was night and day. For more math-adjacent courses, look at economics, esp if thereās a number-crunching course.
S1ās HS also offered mathematical physics, which was derived from UMDās honors physics sequence for majors. MVC was a pre-/co-requisite. LOTS of math, lots of physics, hard work, but fun. AP Physics C exams were easy after that class!
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Thatās just crazy. As a parent, I feel like there are a lot of teachers and admins who think their pedagogical methods should supersede what kids need and want. It starts early and these teachers fight hard because they think gifted kids donāt exist, inequities should be solved in this or that manner, or a number of other approaches that have nothing to do with needs and desires of the STUDENT.
Stats is very important but it is something that can be taken in college. If a kid is +2/+3 they are going to be bored with stats as their only math. Itās a reason to change schools and/or not apply to a particular private. Sadly, some students at your school wonāt realize this until they learn that fact. Honestly, it sounds like they are trying to save money or might not have enough advanced math staff so if they can limit the number they can make it easier for the school.
That Stats factor would knock Lāville off any list for a +2/3 kids esp if math is their āthingā
I really know nothing about the math track in high school. āBack in the dayā, all we had at the AP level was Calculus AB or Calculus BC. Nothing else.
Are you serious that AP Stats is that easy? I know things vary for each student, but this is REALLY surprising to me.
A good AP Stat teacher goes beyond the curriculum and it can have more of a math-modeling component. Our D23 took it in 9th concurrent with Honors Precal and it was a great course. No, it was not super hardā3/4 of the class were 11/12th graders, 1/4 10th (most kids take it as a second math, an elective, taking concurrent with precal or calc, but the class is open as final math course to those who do not do Calculus (less than 1/4 of the school). It was definitely worthwhile.
As with all of the options in math acceleration, so much of this depends on the school and the teachers. I guess we are quite lucky where we are.
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Take that easy statement with a grain of salt. neela1 is obviously math-oriented and approaches from that very strong bias. Some will find it easy, some not. A better representation would be the overall score distribution (for 2021). AP Stats had 16% get 5ās and 25% get a 1ās. By comparison, BC Calc has 38% 5ās and 7% 1ās. Thereās likely self selection where BC is getting a higher ratio of a different kind of student but these scores still suggest thereās plenty of people who donāt find Stats easy outside of this echo chamber thread of hyper capable math parents and students.
Hereās the full distribution if youāre interested.
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BC has a higher score distribution that AB, likely because of a strong self-selection effect (i.e. the strongest-in-math students take BC, while AB gets many of those who are merely good at math). AP statistics apparently gets a lot of students taking the off-ramp from the main math sequence (i.e. take AP statistics instead of precalculus after algebra 2), so there is a self-selection toward weaker-in-math students.
The self-selection effect also shows in a comparison between physics 1 versus any other physics AP, or human geography (commonly taken in 9th grade) versus any other social studies AP.
That said, statistics is typically more than a day of reading.
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Yes. The kind of math students being discussed in this thread are uncommon. Their interests and talent far exceed what is offered at most public schools and, for many of them, AP Stats is probably not particularly difficult. At the same time, for those who seem concerned about their +2/+3 kids not being competitive enough for college that shouldnāt be a concern. Our public HS, which doesnāt offer anything beyond AP Calc AB/BC and AP Stats, regularly sends kids to well regarded STEM schools - including MIT.
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Thatās why they have the Calc-Based Prob-Stat. All my friends who take the class love itāthough they claim you really have to be āinto mathā to take it.
In terms of the regular honors stats, most people who take that like it because itās a free A+ for anyone who does decently well in calculus; at a school as competitive as this, you do have a lot of students intentionally taking easy classes for grade boosts (esp. since thereās no weighing).
Anyways, as skieurope said, letās move on.
Let me state this more carefully. It is easier than other stem APs such as BC, Physics with Calculus, Chemistry. It is also easier than diff eq and mvc and Lin alg.
Part of the reason it is easy is because it is mostly numerical. It is the intro treatment of stats.
I am not saying stats in general is easy. The neighbouring subject of probability is harder ā there is a lot of nuance in probability.
All that said, statistics is a very useful subject
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I never heard of that class being offered at any school.