Hello! Looking for advice… My daughter is a senior getting ready to apply to colleges. She has taken math through Probability/Statistics. We were told by one academic advisor that we consulted that she needs to take precalculus in order to be competitive in the admissions process. She loathes math and is concerned that she won’t be able to get an A in it and does not want to mess with her GPA unnecessarily. She wants to pursue a non-math major and use her art (dance) as a supplement. If needed, she can take precalc online. She has filled her in person schedule with AP classes and art requirements (dance major at art HS). She does not want to give up any AP’s to take math in person. Thanks for any advice and shared experiences!
Side note - top schools on her list are NYU, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, George Washington, Fordham, UC San Diego
Speaking only about UCSD, each Residential college has Math GE requirements which can include Entry level Calculus courses for non-STEM majors so having Pre-Calc will make the College Calculus GE requirements much less stressful and give her a good foundation.
It really is expected, even if she just takes “regular” precalculus online.
That being said, if she truly loathes it, it probably won’t be a problem at Bard and Sarah Lawrence, if NYU=Tisch also not a problem.
Fordham has a serious core curriculum so may frown on it, but if she’s applying to Lincoln she may be ok.
Look at what the “Math gen eds” or “quantitative requirement” courses cover. Could be “Art&Geometry” or “Math for citizenship”, but there may also only be traditional classes such as precalculus, college algebra, or calculus.
Could she consider open curriculum colleges, like Hamilton (or URochester, which has clusters rather than gen eds?)
Why UCSD? Its gen eds are notoriously rigorous and far-reaching depending on the “house” or “college” where you’re placed. If she doesn’t want to take serious math in college, she’s better off choosing another UC. (Also, note that UCs do not award financial aid to OOS applicants and are legally barred from admitting more than 20% OOS and internationals, so if you are not a California resident, it is harder than it looks to get in and you have to be ready to pay 66K out of pocket).
At my D’s LAC, the lowest math class available is Calc I. While it doesn’t list Pre-Calc as a requirement, I think it would be safe to assume most students have taken that as a minimum. Many students start there with Calc II, having satisfied the Calc I prerequisite with an AP Calc exam.
My recommendation, like @MYOS1634 said, is to look at what each school has available and see what the Gen Ed requirements are. In addition to that, you need to look at how your D stacks up with the rest of the applicant pool. She will be compared with others from her school or your geographic area and if she is lacking in comparison to those applicants, the decision may not be in her favor.
Check whether colleges’ general education requirements have a math or quantitative reasoning requirement that may benefit from having completed precalculus. Dig a little deeper into the details to find out if precalculus in high school would help with prerequisites for any such requirement.
Precalc is standard high school math for those who intend to apply to academically-inclined universities/colleges. It’s only seen as a college class at community colleges and less competitive colleges/universities, where it’s called “College Algebra”, but it’s got a lot of Trigonometry in it, that most of us took in high school. It’s considered to be a component of a solid, complete high school education.
If she’s applying for an arts major at an arts school, there might not be any math competency exam or requirement. But many colleges require that she go as far as precalc in math. If she really doesn’t want to give up any of her other classes in order to fit in precalc, she can do it as a CLEP exam, using the website modernstates.org to prepare for it. They issue her a free voucher, too, to take the CLEP exam. Arts schools won’t care about this. But I have a feeling that competitive schools will not look well upon this, satisfying precalc with a CLEP class.
I have to agree with others. My daughter will be a college freshman so just went through the admissions process. I would think a lot of the schools on her list would expect to see Pre Calc. It doesnt have to be her strongest subject or an honors class, just to show that she is well rounded and tried. They look for “rigor”. Maybe you can get her a tutor to help her though it, that 1:1 often helps. Good luck!
I can say with certainty that for a kid with an arts supplement, who brings that talent to the table, that many of the colleges that would be a good fit will absolutely not care about precal in hs, and that includes top schools like Ivies.
Has she considered Bennington or Skidmore? Good list already…I am PM’ing you.
Having a stellar GPA without rigor is not going to help her cause.
What is the highest level math offered at your school. This is where you need to look at your school profile. Will she be downgraded on her recommendation as not taking the most rigorous course work that your high school offers or is she taking what is needed to graduate)? Remember in this context, she is going to be compared to her peers in school.
I think that she should take pre-calculus because even non-math people will need some kind of math class in order to graduate. My non-math/ non-stem major D still took AP Calc BC in high school, in preparation for college math.
Are the 2 of you looking at the math requirements for each school.
Generally speaking, you’re right. But at a Performing Arts HS probably not.
Only the most selective ones: most colleges that admit 50% applicants or more start math sequences with precalculus.
In the past premeds’math sequence used to be precalc+calc as the “1 year of college math”. Of course since strong STEM students tend to take AP Calc when possible and due to Statistics being essential in medicine the requirement has been changed, but many collzges still consider that Algebra2 is the highest level of math completed, sometimes + trig or + stats or + financial math.
So the issue really is what the colleges targeted by OP’s daughter offer and require. Outside of, say, HarveyMudd, most will offer math for non majors. It’s essential she learn whether the offerings for non majors will be precalculus or whether it will be a more adapted math class such as applied statistics/math for citizenship - or even if there’s any such requirement (I doubt it for Tisch or Sarah Lawrence but haven’t checked).