Never made any sense to me, but then AB doesn’t make sense to me.
Kids in precalc as a Junior are advanced in math, at least against the national population. I just don’t get why they should be slowed down for Senior math. (And requiring AB one year before BC is ludicrous for these kids.)
Full disclosure: our HS only offers BC.
@bluebayou you are lucky
I agree. I’ve got a junior in this situation (and as you have stated, at our school that is considered the advanced track) and a freshman who will have precalc as a sophomore. The freshman is in the minority and receives a waiver to do this based on his (tested into) elementary school program so it only applies to 1-2% of the total school population. Even for my junior, he is most certainly in the minority in his class, it is mostly seniors.
They are required to do the AB and BC @ 1 full year each and AB is a pre-req for BC. Very annoying, esp for the freshman who is currently bored out of his mind in Algebra 2.
Oh well, it leaves time for EC’s and having a life and that’s not really so bad at all.
There are two separate questions really here - meeting the admission requirements and meeting college graduation requirements.
Many colleges waive your foreign language requirement if you have an AP credit or score high enough in a placement test or SAT II. If a college has a language requirement for graduation, your major doesn’t matter. It is important to check what the college requires you to graduate and what I have seen in the past is that many specify 1-2 semesters of foreign language.
Now let us take this engineering major who does not need to learn Spanish for their job - they would still need to spend that time in college completing the requirement. It is going to be a problem because they already start with a huge bag of ABET engineering requirements to get a degree and adding liberal arts distribution and language adds to that load making their graduating in 4 years that much harder.
Perhaps your school district has a lot of inappropriate math acceleration, perhaps under pressure from parents who pressure the school to put their kids in more advanced math than they really are ready for? Normally, someone who reaches calculus in 11th grade (two years ahead) is a top student in math who can handle calculus BC or college calculus easily (A in class, 5 on test, thinks it is easy), rather than needing the slower two year AB - BC sequence.
As a cynic, I’d add two other reasons: 1) class load balancing and budget; 2) BC can a lot of work by itself, particularly for the smart, but not math-whiz types. Thus, for those kids, = a lot of HW/study time = parent complaints (“too much homework”).
Here is a thought, I have a non math whiz kid, but smart and math is her best subject. She is taking Algebra I in 7th with all 6 week grades 98-100 range. I think if this continues she will be able to handle BC in 11th but our school has nothing beyond that. I would need to enroll her in cc (not dual credit), as the only dual credit math is College Algebra. We live out of district so that would be costly and the local U (Texas Tech) would be cost prohibitive. I am very hopeful she gets NMF and can take a full ride. So is there harm in doing AB then BC just to fill the time?
Also homework is fine with us. Mastering the concepts is upmost importance.
@texaspg There are very few schools where a BS in Engineering requires any foreign language. Even a BS in Math, Physics, or Computer Science there were very few schools that require foreign language.
There is no harm in taking AB then BC but it is a waste of time and would be boring. Is AP Stats an option? In our area CC don’t offer Matrix Algebra and Multi-Var we have to dual enroll through a 4 year college for those classes. I agree with @ucbalumnus for the kids that are accelerated in math taking BC in 11th grade is typically very easy for them. Why would schools make kids take essentially the same course twice especially the most talented students in math who have been accelerated? BC only has like one or two units in addition to the content of the AB course. Maybe it helps their scores?
D said she will keep an open mind and consider taking a 3rd year in the chance she changes her major.
@dcplanner - you are right - I checked UT Austin and they dont have a language requirement for their core. However, they do have a core of several credits for humanities irrespective of the major. I got to the link from the engineering school telling their students that they need to take care of core.
@dcplanner My theory is that it increases the number of AP tests taken and increases the passing rates on AP tests- two metrics in the USNWR and Newsweek rankings for high schools.
@ucbalumnus and @bluebayou I suspect you are both right. Although in our district only super smart or kids that creatively doubled up will make it to BC. It’s a small pool. It if often only offered at one of the 2 high schools, rarely do both have enough for a full class of each so kids may have to travel to the other HS to take it.
@dcplanner AP Stats will be an option for my current freshman but for his desired path (Physics), I think AP Chem may a better choice for the one extra slot he will have open senior year. Poor kid though, I was really hoping by the time he got to AB he wouldn’t be bored. We are fairly sure pre-calc will be boring for him. I suppose the good news/silver lining is that if AB is boring, but his entire load outside of music is AP’s, that will help in the overall HW scenario.
@gettingschooled along with ucbalumnus and bluebayou’s comments, I suspect you are right.
re post # 106. Some top tier schools DO require a foreign language to graduate in sciences. One can get a BS or BA in any Letters and Sciences major- the graduation requirements are slightly different, including the HS years/college semesters of foreign language. Could check on Engineering. Eons ago I got a BA with Honors in Chemistry because I liked the white tassel better and had met reqs for both. Had just as much chemistry and other science as my friends who opted for the BS.
@eandesmom We have found that even having many more resources for math acceleration here math is still easy for the top percentage of students. My kids aren’t totally bored but they do get 100% or higher so they clearly aren’t being challenged. There are a few questions per unit that get the kids all excited and working in big groups to figure out which I like. The Physics C teacher is great about giving the kids extra resources like problem sets from MIT as a challenge for the kids who are really into STEM.
@wis75 The only ones we found that required lang for a BS were Harvard and UChicago (1 year) and Yale (2 years) the rest of the top schools do not have a language requirement for BS. @texaspg That UT core was very interesting to look at. A whole year of US and Texas history; my D17 was aghast 
Colleges with foreign language requirements for engineering majors:
Swarthmore: 2nd semester of college foreign language or 3 years of high school foreign language
United States Air Force Academy: 2 semesters of college foreign language
United States Military Academy: 2 semesters of college foreign language
United States Naval Academy: 4th semester of college foreign language or equivalent
But foreign language requirements that include engineering majors do not appear to be very common.
The military academy students we know were given some kind of specialized language aptitude test and were assigned a language for college that was not a language they had ever taken in HS. Mostly Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. No doubt though knowing a second language is helpful for a third language but the military is looking for things other than what is offered in most high schools.
I don’t understand why she’d need any foreign language at all. I’m a social sciences major in California, and I have never completed a foreign language course, nor am I required to. I don’t see why an engineer would be required to have one if someone mostly educated in public policy isn’t.
Too bad you missed out on learning another language, spaceship. You don’t know what you missed. Subtle but it gives many insights about one’s own language and how it influences culture. Idioms especially give clues. The best education includes so many unneeded courses that enhance one’s life.
@dcplanner I think we may see how precalc goes. If he really is bored out of his mind still, it may warrant a GC meeting to explore other math options. So far he’s been ok/engaged on the science side, hopefully that will hold true. I know he was planning on such a meeting anyway, but not sure if he is thinking for this year or next