Re: #59
Someone that advanced in math should be someone who finds any high school math up to calculus BC to be an easy A (and easy 5 on AP test).
If s/he finds math extremely hard, that suggests inappropriate acceleration beyond what is reasonable.
@droppedit I would say that it depends on the kid. Some kids really like math. Unless the kid you saw is “spending all his time on math” because Calculus is a struggle for him, it sounds like he likes it.
My S17 had a friend who really only wanted to take extra math courses, including over the summer. The parents tried to entice him with programming and science classes, but he wanted math. He took Calc 1 at our community college the summer before 9th grade. I lost track of what math he was taking by the end of HS, but it was upper-division math at UCSB. I hear he’s happy as a math major at Berkeley now. I know his parents; they weren’t pushing this!
@ucbalumnus, yes but that just happens to be my younger child’s experience. The summer geometry at my children’s school is open to “regular track” kids; they can take it after completing algebra in 9th. It is true, though, that summer geometry is mostly used by kids looking to go +1 to +2.
More importantly, no one at my children’s school gets put on the “regular track” until 8th grade, when some kids begin a slower-paced, two-year algebra program (8th/9th). Same is more or less true at the public schools in our area – 5th and 6th grade are in the elementary district, and there’s no tracking from elementary to middle school. So I was surprised by the OP’s experience of very early tracking.
My son was in the nightmare year of transition from traditional math to integrated math. During year 1 of the transition 8th graders only had a choice of geometry or Math 8 (no algebra or IM1 for 8th graders, although IM1 was offered to 8th graders the following year). so +1 without compaction was gone. Schools later figured out the compaction to get students to calculus by 12th grade. It will be interesting to see if this changes the stats for these transition year kids applying to Cal Poly SLO. In our area, pretty much everyone was in algebra or geometry in 8th before the transition (5 or more years advanced math). But year 1 transition students were split between Math 8 (4 years advanced math) and geometry (5+ years advanced math), meaning no full math bonus on the MCA for some.
@StillLotsToLearn what is MCA,a math bonus and why would you need a math bonus?
For my daughter who is a college freshman the standard math in 8th grade for the entire city was algebra 1 and depending on how you did you would start high school in algebra 1 cp/H or geometry cp/h. There is also an opportunity to pay for a summer math program to advance in math if desired - it has to be the summer school math program and no where else. Basically without doing anything extra kids could start in geometry and take AP Calculus BC senior year.
Fast forward 4 years - last year my 9th grade daughter was in 8th grade at the same school. At one point it changed so the entire class is doing 8th grade math instead. Since our school is small they claimed there weren’t enough kids to justify having an advanced class like the other bigger schools. My daughter did 8th grade math then after school the math teacher had a math club for advanced students one day a week and supplemented with integrated math 1 and at the end of the year the kids needed to scored high enough (no idea what the score needed was) to start in integrated math 2.
This is the 2nd year the high school has integrated math and the first year having integrated math 2 honors. To be honest I don’t even know if my daughter really completed integrated math 1. The math teacher is aware that there may be gaps here and there since I guess some schools did more algebra 1 last year vs integrated math. Next year might be easier with everyone having the same base but it will be the first year teaching IM3. My daughter can still get to AP Cal BC if desired without doing anything extra and between summer math and dual enrollment a student can advance more if desired. The best part is the principal we used to have was against integrated math. The new principal insisted it be changed. In the midst of the change he quit.
@momtogirls2 , MCA is Multi Criteria Admission and is specific to Cal Poly SLO. Admission to SLO is based on a point system with max points of 5000. The math requirement is 3 years high school math, but for each semester over 3 years and up to 5 years the student is awarded 125 “bonus points” (they still make up part of the 5000 max, and math in middle school counts only if it is Algebra/IM1 or higher). Admission for the most competitive majors has been said to be around 4700-4800. Students with only 4 years of math could be hit hard if they miss out on 250 bonus points. You can do a search on Cal Poly SLO and MCA and find lots of details on it. If you are not considering SLO, you will not have to worry about it. 