It is a general private school. There is nothing specific about it. Kids study all kinds of subjects. Course rigor is high.
Our private is very similar, yet +3s are very very rare so they arenât significant to assess. +2 is 1/4ish of the senior class, and makeup well over 2/3 of the T10 type admits the past several years, but T20-25 is only slightly over half +2s. Some is because some â+2â do not have other rigor or the grades arenât great, or they have nothing outside of school, and some +1s take every rigor opportunity available and beyond in non-stem areas, and have no trouble because they are amazing kids. But I absolutely agree that overall rigor is hugely important in determining success, it just isnât exclusive to +2 here, and +3 doesnât add to it. Every HS is different and the context of accomplishment in oneâs own HS is more important than what other HS environments entail.
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The standard admissions line is that top schools are looking for students who have taken the most rigorous classes offered by the studentâs high school.
So if a high school has math tracks leading beyond AP Calc, then kids who arenât on that track arenât taking the most rigorous classes offered, and theyâll be on a less rigorous path than their peers. Likewise, if a student completes through AP Calc as an underclassmen, then they pretty much have keep going to get their requisite four years math and to keep up with the rigor requirement.
Never mind that these kids might be better off from an educational perspective if they waited to take the more advanced math in a college setting, and/or if they focused on an educational weakness and took a non-math course.
Itâs checking boxes. The college admissions rat race.
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I understand the kid needs to be broader. The strongest kids in the school tend to often by +3 in Math, and have a very strong humanities foot print (it is popular to apply to a T5 school as Physics and Comp Lit double major etc), and have a very strong footprint in ECs as well.
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I may gently disagree with you on this :-). Kids have a lot of band width and a wide variety of interests. They are genuinely interested in multiple things. We can give them the benefit of the doubt, or assume they are checking boxes. Either way they donât care :-).
Why not both? They may be interested and checking boxes. For example, if they are interested in math/STEM, and they are interested in admission to MIT, then many students (or their parents) will understand that had better be on that âmost advancedâ math track for admissions purposes, even if it they would be better off from an educational perspective if they waited to take the more advanced material at MIT rather than Local HS.
impression from the talented/impressive CC inputs
Joke aside. I recently had conference calls w Singapore office, out of curiosity I ask about the Math education in Singapore. +2 track does seem norm in good schools in Singapore. (Disclaimer: my sample size is small. This is input from my Singapore colleague)
This is incorrect. I can tell from experience in our family. It is better to go prepared. So that you can use a school like MIT as well as you can. As they say, it is like drinking from the fire house. My son is not at MIT, but at a different school. I can tell you that the opportunities to take classes from the top algo prof in the field, or the top combinatorist in the field etc are available only if you are above a certain threshold, and are able to take their classes. If you are taking classes that you could have taken in high school, you are not fully utilizing an institution like MIT â and you have a strictly limited amount of time at MIT.
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Only 2 colleges, Caltech and HMC, require calculus (another college CMU SCS recommends it). The other 5,000+ colleges donât. If the studentâs high school offers it and s/he wants to study STEM at a top college, s/he probably should take it so sh/e doesnât look uncompetitive. But taking calculus doesnât make her/him more competitive compared to other applicants. Thereâre many ways to demonstrate course rigor. Calculus is only one of them and isnât sufficient by itself anyway.
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MIT is an outlier and not a particularly good general example. The regular entry level single variable calculus course 18.01 is accelerated compared to other college single variable calculus courses (covers in one semester what most other colleges cover in two semesters), presumably because of the assumption that all or almost all entering MIT frosh have seen calculus in high school. Obviously, not all earn a high enough score on the AP exam and/or MITâs math placement exam to start in a higher math course. I.e. students in 18.01 are likely to be doing a fast paced rigorous review of single variable calculus, rather than seeing it for the first time. (Though for someone who got into MIT with only precalculus, presumably due to non-opportunity to take calculus, 18.01 probably feels like drinking from a fire hose.)
Olin College of Engineering also, as of when the list linked below was made. A few others require calculus for some applicants, and some more recommend it for all or some applicants. However, this list is small compared to the thousands of colleges in the US. So there is only a small number of colleges where being on the +1 math track is required or explicitly recommended.
Iâm not sure that your familyâs anecdotal experience provides a sound basis for your blanket rejection. In other words, it may be true of your son, but not others. There are plenty of counter-anecdotes of kids who are able to take advantage of what MIT (and comparable schools) have to offer without high school math beyond AP Calc.
âPreparedâ doesnât necessarily mean having ticked off the most advanced classes. Depth matters. Among other things.
You are right. I am wrong. Obviously I didnât know what I was thinking when I said it is better to go in prepared to make the best use of the placeâŠ
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At high performing high schools, this just isnât true. Itâd be nice if it was, but it just isnât. At some schools, even taking Calc wonât be viewed as most rigorous.
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It may make her/him âcompetitiveâ, but not more competitive.
Speaking of rigor in any given HS. I also see the danger of rushing through without solid understanding and foundation. I see families pushing really hard for kids to skip grades. I am not sure if it really works out well for everyone. Some kids end up getting bad grade and stuck in retaking the courses or moving down. This happens too. Wondering if those families take that into accounts before pushing for most highest available courses.
Or do people still think itâs better to get a B in advanced courses than A+ in regular courses?
Our school tells is to take the hardest courses we can without getting Bs.
Parents pushing their kids to take classes that their kids arenât ready for isnât generally a good idea, irrespective of the grades.
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Some math, albeit not as high level as MVC. 13% of the users on this thread comprise 40% of the posts. If the the thread devolves into just a few users talking over each other, the thread wonât last long.
I have put the thread on slow mode until morning. My hope is this will allow other users to join the conversation and prompt the more exuberant users to be strategic in postings.
This is an interesting report about math/calculusâs role in college admissions etc:
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