<p>Two quick remarks, one on acceleration in literature and the other on math:</p>
<p>Thinking back, I did recall reading Wuthering Heights at a snail’s pace in British Literature, after having read it on my own. The second time through, I felt emotionally detached from the book–that was not the case when I read it the first time. On the other hand, I’m not sure that is entirely attributable to the pace of the second reading.</p>
<p>With regard to the advisability of reaching calculus as a junior–I think this is something that one cannot comment on, without knowing and observing the student. Lots of students take calculus as high school juniors, or even earlier. Lots of students do fine with it. If there is a local college where the student could take more advanced math as a high school senior, or if the student can handle an online course for the subsequent material (multi-variable calculus, differential equations), then the way is clear to head in that direction, with the option of pulling back if the earlier courses are not going as planned.</p>
<p>Virtually all universities offer Calc I to incoming students, so in principle, it would be possible to postpone calculus until college. Caltech is an exception, and there are probably others, such as Harvey Mudd from what I’ve heard. On the other hand, a substantial fraction of the class in Calc I in college has had calculus in high school, and is in a sense repeating it. This is not to say that a student who had no calculus would find the course impossible (or impossible to get an A), but it would be a bit of an uphill run.</p>
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<p>This may only be the case in highly selective colleges.</p>
<p>Remember that only about a third of four-year-college-bound students take a calculus AP test (typical result of taking calculus in high school). It is likely that at moderately selective colleges, most students in calculus 1 are seeing it for the first time, having just completed precalculus. Even at more selective colleges (except Caltech and Harvey Mudd), the calculus 1 course is designed for students who have just completed precalculus.</p>
<p>Re: Lack of Acceleration in English</p>
<p>In schools with AP courses that are weighted more heavily for GPAs (many public and some private high schools), allowing students to accelerate in math but not in English gives the best math students a GPA advantage over the best English students. They can get to those AP courses more quickly, in time to have them finished by junior year and on a high school transcript before college applications. In some schools, particularly those on the semester system, this can mean three math APs (four if you include computer science) vs. only AP English Language, enough to make a significant difference in GPA and class rank. I’ve known situations where this alone kept the brightest student in a class from being the valedictorian or even salutatorian.</p>
<p>Aside from class rank considerations, why are schools so eager to accelerate a child who has mastered Algebra I concepts by the sixth or seventh grade but will not do so for a child who is reading Shakespeare for pleasure in the second grade? Is it society’s push for STEM over everything else?</p>