<p>DD will likely be taking Calculus at the local college as a HS Junior. I expect she will take the AP Calc BC test at the end of the year. Other than the AP credits, we will not be looking for credit at whatever college she ends up attending. This is not duel enrollment so she will not be getting HS credit for this. </p>
<p>So, given all of that, is there any reason she could/should not take the calculus pass/fail, at least the first semester? It will be a bit of a change for her (her HS is not very rigorous) so this could take a bit of pressure off initially as she transitions. I actually expect her to do fine in Calculus but one never knows and I don't want a bad college grade as a HS junior trailing her for the rest of her academic career.</p>
<p>Is she taking Calc 2? Because at the college level, calc classes are one term. (And taking AP Calc BC after that is just fine).</p>
<p>Is she continuing in Calc after Calc 2? Taking it as a junior is great, I’m just not sure why she wouldn’t be interested in the grade. The GPA isn’t going to transfer to the college she attends (unless she will be attending the very same college she takes the class at). So if anything, showing colleges that she can do well in a college class is a good thing. Pass/fail doesn’t quite do that - no real harm, but no particular benefit, since a “pass” is anything above a C-.</p>
<p>If she is continuing in Calc, then why wouldn’t she want the grade?</p>
<p>Edited to add: my kid has taken two calc classes so far in college, after taking Advanced calc with honors (and getting a 5 on the AB exam). He found 2 easy at the state uni and 3 challenging at the local LAC. He’s a math kid, so I wouldn’t expect him to particularly struggle. If she found the HS calc class easy, then the next one at college should be fairly easy.</p>
<p>Sorry I was not clear. She will actually be starting next fall as a Junior and take calc I/II during the year. Then possibly linear alg as a HS senior etc.</p>
<p>Her transcript from this college will be part of her grad school application (I know I’m getting ahead but DS is doing grad schools apps now) and her grade as a 16yr old will ‘count’ in her grad apps even if no credit is given at the college she attends. And since colleges will also be looking at her grade as part of her app, looking at possibly dec the pressure she might feel if she was doing it P/F.</p>
<p>ADad, yes that would be the case. And the college she attends likely won’t give her ‘credit’ for the class but would give her credit for the AP test. It’s not a community college but a regular 4 year college.</p>
<p>By “grad school”, do you mean medical or law school, where GPA is highly important and includes college courses taken while in high school?</p>
<p>If you mean PhD programs, then it is unlikely that a frosh-level course taken while in high school will be significant compared to research experience, recommendations, and grades in upper division major courses.</p>
<p>But why would she be worried? If she is taking calculus as a high school junior (two years advanced), she is probably a top student in math who should be able to get an easy A in a high school or college calculus course.</p>
<p>Regarding AP tests, the AB syllabus typically approximates college calculus 1, while the BC syllabus typically approximates college calculus 1 and 2, although there may be a small percentage of topics present or absent when comparing the AP syllabi to those of college calculus courses at various colleges.</p>
<p>If your daughter is thinking of majoring in any discipline that requires calculus, so think physics, any engineering, math (obviously) but also business, maybe biology, economics, then she should take the class for grade. But if she’s taking calculus as a junior, she’ll do fine in the class.</p>
<p>the other reason that you need to consider is her overall Jr year schedule and how rigorous it appears to undergrad admissions. A P/F course is not rigorous by itself, but if she has 7 other academic (honors/AP) courses where she earns A’s, adcoms might not care. But if Calc is her 5th academic course, and it is P/F, she would appear to have a lite schedule to me.</p>
<p>Take the course for the grade. Discuss with her HS guidance counselor. She is obviously gifted in math and likely to do well. Taking a course P/F may matter at some future college for its major requirements. </p>
<p>A gifted HS student took various calculus courses at various schools. Not all courses are created equally. She (per her mother) rated them with AP, local college, flagship regular and lower Ivy in ascending order. She was unable to take the flagship Honors Calculus (a top 15 or so math grad dept) while doing her senior HS year so she couldn’t rank that. Your D will be getting an average calculus course, and should find it as easy as her previous courses. Another example- 16 year old college freshman son was not the youngest in his Honors Physics class- there was a 14 year old HS girl (she likely was beyond the Honors calculus course he started with) as well as another, older, HS student. She obviously had the math and physics to do well in the big league college courses. </p>
<p>Your D is not the only student to needing to go beyond HS offerings. She is not the youngest to take and do well in college courses. Good grades will be an asset on her college applications. She is likely to get an A with her ability and may find the course pace more to her liking than past experiences. Most courses are problem, not theory, based so she unfortunately won’t get to indulge in this aspect of mathematics yet. Of course, she may have engineering, not abstract, math interests. She is more likely to treat the class seriously if she is taking it for the grade and will learn more. Since math courses often build on past knowledge this will help her in future classes (there is more calculus to be taken for math majors after the first 3 semesters).</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. Just making sure we’ve looked at various options before we go talk to the HS counselor. </p>
<p>Yes, I do think she will do fine. Her 8th grade math SAT score actually would have put her in the top 10% of entering freshmen (although most don’t take the SAT). She’s a bit anxious about the prospect of attending “college” so was looking at potential scenarios.</p>
<p>Let her know she is not the only HS student able to do well in college classes even if she is the only one in her college class. She will likely not find her academic peer group at this college so she should be prepared for students academically like the ones she encounters in HS. I am presuming this local college is not one of the elite ones. It would have been so nice for our son if we had lived in the flagship city instead of ours although they did well with gifted and talented programming. She is likely to wow the local college students with her abilities even if they don’t realize she isn’t a college student like they are. In college people don’t care about your age, they may not find out her status unless she tells them. Whole new paradigm.</p>
<p>I recall when I was in high school two top students were sent to a good local university to study multivariable calculus and differential equations. They ended up being the top two students in the college classes.</p>
<p>OP, my daughter took a more advanced college math class this fall at a well-known University. For her, the main issue was time. She also had 6 credit high school classes (5 AP/dual) and also one non-credit, with a lot of college researching and essay-writing to do, all that with EC’s and commuting time, was just not able to put quite as much time into the college course as she really needed. Still did well though. She did maybe a tougher schedule as a junior with a kind-of-dual college math class at her high school and that went really well. I think it was the time sink of the college applications that pushed her a little beyond what she could comfortably handle, and the extra 2-3 hours/week having to drive to her University class probably didn’t help either.</p>
<p>It sounds like she is a top math student who should not have trouble with the course material.</p>
<p>The main difference in college courses in general compared to high school courses is that college courses expect students to keep up on their own, with less hand holding than in high school. For example, there may be less frequent but longer class meeting times, less frequent but larger and harder homework assignments, and tests with harder questions instead of lots of easy ones for C students to get 70% correct.</p>
<p>One thought is that if she took it as P/F, colleges wouldn’t know if she originally was taking the class for a grade and then switched to P/F because she was struggling. If she’s going to go through the logistics of taking it at a college, I’d go for the grade and let the chips fall where they may.</p>
<p>My thinking was that if she did well on Calc BC test, P/F would not matter as she would get AP credit anyway. Akin to self-studying for an AP test. If she did poorly in the class or the test, then better to have P/F as she would not be getting the credit at her matriculating college anyway and the bad grade would not follow her.</p>
<p>Her schedule will not be demanding as the offerings at the HS are not very challenging.</p>