Hi, so I am a rising sophomore at a prestigious California high school and plan to apply to UCLA/UCI/UCD as a finance or economics major how important is it for me to complete the highest level of mathematics offered at my school as I am currently taking Algebra 2 and on track to go up to Calc AB. Is it vital for me to skip AB after I finish pre calc or is going to only AB fine
I feel as if it is more important that you receive an A, if you believe you can earn an honest A in Calc BC when the time comes what reason will there be for taking Calc AB? But if Calc AB seems to be your best bet at getting an A I would stay on track and complete that senior year.
It doesn’t matter. Take whichever one you are placed into.
Is your high school’s calculus BC course one that includes all of the AB material (i.e. more like a college calculus course in terms of how fast it covers the material) or one designed for students who completed AB the previous year? If the latter, then you would not be able to take it immediately after precalculus.
You will eventually need calculus for economics or finance; completing AB in high school is fine. Your college may allow you to skip calculus 1 with a high enough score on the AB exam, but it is best to check the syllabi and try the old final exams of the college’s calculus 1 course when deciding whether or not to skip it.
@Jcannon1023 I never thought about this as I felt a b would not really matter since 1st semester senior year grades are not factored into UC admission
@the BC course 1st semester is literally a review of all the material covered over the full year of AB and Second semester is where u cover the new concepts my question was simply if admissions would look more favorably at calc bc over calc ab
They will be happy that you pushed yourself, but if a college were to reject your application with AB in your schedule, having BC will not change it to an acceptance.
That is an enlightening statement for sure. What if you took AB and BC? Also, do they look more favorably on taking AP statistics vs Pre-Calculus Honors?
@skieurope makes sense and @moscott I’m pretty sure you can’t do that because he BC and AB exams are on the same day at the same time I’ll probably end up taking AP Stats and AP calc AB
You cannot take both the AP calc AB and BC exams in the same year. This is not because of them being at the same time, but rather because some of the questions are the same on both exams.
Let me clarify my question…skieurope said “… if a college were to reject your application with AB in your schedule, having BC will not change it to an acceptance.”
My question was would it help your application to have both AB and BC(not in the same year) on your transcript.
Probably not as good as taking BC over one year after completing precalculus, if that is offered in your high school. If you are ahead enough in math to take calculus in 11th grade, shouldn’t you be one of the top math students who can handle BC over one year at the same pace that college calculus courses cover material?
It helps your weighted GPA for UC’s unless you’ve already reached the cap. Otherwise, no.
This is assuming facts that are not in evidence. There are almost as many ways to offer AP Calculus classes as there are high schools in the US. While some may offer Calculus BC as a year-long course which covers both the AB and BC topics, many many others offer BC as a year-long (or semester-long) course covering only the BC topics (after a rapid review of AB), for which Calculus AB is a prerequisite. That said, I am not aware of any college that has expressed a preference that its applicants have one type of Calc BC preparation over another. If anyone has facts to the contrary, please feel free to post.
Having said all that, as per the original post, the poster’s top choices are all UC’s, whose admissions criteria are less holistic than many private unis and LAC’s. IMO, they are just not going to care when its applicants took calculus.
Why would a student two years ahead of the normal sequence in math not be a top math student? Or are middle and high schools now inappropriately accelerating students in math so that not-as-strong-in-math students reach calculus in 11th grade and thus “need” a slow-paced calculus sequence?
Obviously, if the high school does not offer a one year BC course and requires a two year AB-BC sequence instead, that is a loss for any student who truly is a strong math student.
Note that normal sequence (non-accelerated) math students who complete precalculus in 12th grade will take full-speed calculus in college if they need calculus.
I was referring to the fact that it is unknown if the school offers a one-year combined AB/BC sequence; I was not implying that the student was not a top math student.
That is why I wrote “if that is offered in your high school” when referring to a one year BC course.
“requires a two year AB-BC sequence”
This just seems so foreign to S’s experience. His eleventh grade precalc teacher felt that there was only so much precalc material to teach and that she finished material by Feb/Mar. At that point she would begin introducing kids to Calc. Her advice was that if you were understanding material then take Calc BC senior year, otherwise take Calc AB.
As to original question (how important is it for me to complete the highest level of mathematics offered…?) I think you should complete highest level of math that you can take AND do well in. And agreeing with skieurope especially as to UCLA (considering they had 92K+ freshman applicants last year), whether you having AB v BC or both AB- BC (different years) wont be THE reason you’re rejected or accepted.
“What if you took AB and BC? Also, do they look more favorably on taking AP statistics vs Pre-Calculus Honors?”
Schools don’t publish the weight they assign to different aspects (academic or otherwise) of an application. Unless participating in a school’s admission process, nobody can really answer this or similar types of questions
Just for clarification…my S school’s typical advanced order of math is:
Algebra 1 honors
Geometry honors
Algebra 2 honors
Pre-Calculus
The highest they go is Calculus AB
My son is taking
Algebra 2 honors
Pre-Calculus
Calculus AB
and either Calculus BC or AP statistics thru Florida virtual
But the thought of skipping Pe-Calculus and replacing it with AP statistics is a possibility
Note that AP Calc BC in one year is at a college pace while splitting it into 2 years is still at high school pace. CalcBC credits would be equivalent to Calc1 and Calc2 (2 semesters) in college. When the adcom consider course rigor, they will consider that.
It is generally a bad idea to take calculus without knowing the precalculus material well.
If he wants to skip precalculus before taking calculus (in high school or college), he may want to check his knowledge on these placement tests:
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi
http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/
https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam