I am an American student who really wants to study at MIT or Cambridge for university, my question is should I do further mathematics IF I already have IB maths HL and AP calc BC. On the Cambridge website, it says the Uni strong recommend taking further maths while MIT does not mention anything about further math. Plse give me some advices
The number of kids who take IB Further Math exam each year is only 150-200 (globally).
http://www.ibo.org/about-the-ib/facts-and-figures/statistical-bulletins/diploma-programme-statistical-bulletin/
Therefore I do not think it is necessary to take IB Further Math to be admitted to MIT (in fact the rigor of the course is not widely known by the US colleges). It may slightly improve your chances if you perform well. Please check the exam results from the link above, you’ll see that it is not very easy to perform well.
IB Further Math is not your only tool to show MIT/Cambridge that you are good in math and that you chose the most rigorous math courses etc. You can achieve the same by taking Multivar or some other university level math courses. If your school offers an IB Further Math course, you might consider taking it. Otherwise, if you’re thinking to self study, you’d better forget it, it will not worth the effort. In the latter case, I think it’s better to consider a course your school offers (or a course in a community college near you).
I believe the Further Math that Cambridge is recommending is not IB Further Math but A Level Further Math (which is very close to IB Math HL).
@dodosol thank you, and should I transfer to a private school only because they offer further maths? Im in a state school now
It’s not my place to tell you what to do on such a big decision. But thinking to transfer only for one course which will not bring you a tremendous edge on your college applications seemed too aggressive to me. Especially when you only have one or two years left in HS. Transfering in your final years of HS will bring you some other problems as well (too many in fact).
Have you seen IB Further Math curriculum? Do you like all of the six options? They are Stats&prob, Sets&Groups, Calculus, Discrete Math, Lin.Algebra and finally Geometry. You should have studied one of the first four in your IB Math HL, now you have to study the others. IBO assumes that students have already studied (or are studying concurrently) one of the topics. Therefore in every school offering IB FM, one of the subjects is omitted (not studied at all). In the private school that you’re thinking to transfer into, they might have studied a different option than what you have studied. IBO recommends 48 hours of class for each topic and I’m sure that it will not be fun to self study. So this is another thing to consider.
There are other ways to impress colleges. Don’t you have the possibility of taking another math lesson in your school (or in a college nearby)? If you don’t, you can also think of online lessons.
@dodosol My school does offer courses at nearby community colleges such as calc 3 or linear alg, but will British Universities accept it? My aim is to go to Cambridge or Imperial London. Is that possible?
UK universities are not like US universities. They have some predefined set of courses according to what you will study and you will not have any kind of flexibility. For example, if you study mech eng, you’ll get box1 (with set of courses alredy defined for all ME students. If you study Elec Eng, you’ll get box2, etc… Therefore, it wouldn’t matter whether you took IB FM, or calc3, or lin.algebra. You have to take all of the box. You are not able to take a math course from second year’s box. The only thing you can do is to skip whole first year, but of course it is absurd. I’m not familiar with Oxbridge, but this is the case for the rest and I’d bet that it is the case there as well.
If you change your mind and you decide to study a different major after your first year, you have to start with the first year box of your new major. Very practical, right?
There is a reason why so many european kids study in US and not in UK despite the distance and despite the fact that education in US costs much much more than education in UK (for a full paying student).
Btw, to my knowledge, UK universities do not care much about the rigor of your HS courses as long as you’re are on a certain path. If you’re doing IB, or A-Levels, or some kind of AP program, it is OK with them. They won’t care much that you’re doing 4 HLs instead of 3. They will just look to your total IB score and to your score on some specific courses according to the major you’re applying to.
Imperial asks for an IB score of 39.
I go to an American school as well and apparently it is extremely difficult to find teachers qualified to teach further HL math. The only teacher in my state (or maybe it was in the country but that’s probably not right) retired a few years ago
As an IB senior taking HL math, I’ll say you don’t have to. (However you don’t have to take my suggestion either). I was asked to take further math and I denied (Math is not my passion so nope). So anyways back to the advice, there are two students at my school who are currently in HL math. 1 of them applied to MIT and didnt get. Note, this kid is at the top of my class and has like perfect SATs.
Also it depends on what you want to major in. If you major in business (Further Math won’t matter). If you want to major in Math ( take HL math). You kinda have to have this equilibrium… you see what I mean ?
For American universities, Take multivar at community college. Also plan to take the SAT subject test in math2.