Hi guys, I’m just really confused. It blows my mind that some schools let their students take Calculus AB and then take Calculus BC the next year. My school doesn’t let us do that and their justification is that half of BC is all of AB. I, for one, completely agree with that. I had to drop out of BC to AB because it was so hard! We literally went from precalc to BC Calc! But I read some posts on here and students get to take AB and then BC the next year. The AP exam even provides an AB subscore on the BC exam because the whole AB curriculum is basically half of BC’s. The first semester of Calculus BC would just be a blow off because you literally learn the same exact things you learned throughout AB. I learned the whole year of AB before I dropped out of BC in November! I just don’t think that’s fair. Calculus BC is considered to be one of the toughest AP classes all over America and some kids are getting free A’s because they’ve learned half of the curriculum the previous year! Anyone else think that’s unfair?
Life isn’t fair. In college, students will do the equivalent; they’ll register for a lecture of a class that they have AP credit for just so they can get a higher grade into their GPAs.
Moreover, not everybody learns at the same rate. Perhaps some students would be better off spending the full year on AB and then going on to BC.
I was watching ‘Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?’ and Jeff Foxworthy said his dad told him that “life isn’t fair. Fair is where you go to get cotton candy.”
There are also some schools that don’t teach the AB topics in BC. The new BC topics are stretched out over the whole year - you learn AB topics the first year, and topics exclusive to BC in the second year.
And regardless, even if they spend a whole semester relearning AB topics, who cares? Someone who takes regular or honors biology before AP is going to spend a good amount of time reviewing topics they’ve learned already. Someone interested in art history may know a great deal of the curriculum before enrolling in the class. A native speaker of a language is going to have an advantage over non-native speakers on AP languages. Taking Calculus AB before BC really isn’t all that different than any of those.
It is completely fair. The students who took AB spent time and put in the work to learn the material. It’s not like they’re cheating in BC or anything. If you think it is unfair, then you should learn AB material before entering the BC class.
@AlphaDragon that is what I’m saying. At our school, we can do EITHER AB or BC. Once you take AB, there is no way to take BC or even Multivariable.
@baileyj57 those who take honors classes CHOOSE to do so and then they go to AP classes. There is an option to take honors and then go to AP and if you want to take regular and then AP you can also do that. The point is that there’s an option. You can choose to learn more about the class if you’re interested in it. But AP Math classes, for the majority of people, are GPA boosters. Your GPA will go down if you don’t take an AP Math class. For those people, they’re not interested in Math, and thus, most won’t want to prematurely learn those topics. But for us, there is no option; you can either take BC and move on to Multivariable if you’re a junior or senior, or you can take AB and be done with Math.
@“Keasbey Nights” and @CaliCash For those who say that life isn’t fair, you’re correct, but only in certain scenarios. Life isn’t fair if you can’t change circumstances such as death or illness. But this, you can change. Additionally, those who only learn BC topics in Calculus have an easier time because they get to learn more slowly than doing both Calculus 1 and 2 topics in one year. Either way, it’s still unfair.
@AlphaDragon and @baileyj57 why should we have to learn topics by ourselves that other schools teach their students? why cant we spend our extra time having fun like everyone else? why do we have to learn additional material outside of school that others don’t? would you like to be in the same position as people like me?
Is it fair that some schools (like mine) don’t offer either AP Calc? We have Calc 1. You can only get to Calc 2 if you skipped a level back in middle school. Is it fair that some schools (like mine) don’t offer any AP languages? Can’t take a foreign language subject test from my school; there’s no chance you’ve learned enough from two years of regular Spanish and two years of honors, which is all we have.
Where you see “Why do we have to learn additional material that others don’t?” students with fewer opportunities might see “Why do they get to take higher-level math than us?”
In short: schools are not created equal. You have the opportunity to take more advanced math than lots of people – they don’t even get to calculus at all.
Why does it matter whether you take AB or BC? They’re are plenty of kids who take BC right after pre-calculus, so this isn’t a universal advantage. IF you think it is unfair and you don’t want to learn AB before BC, why not just take AB?
I got a free A from health class; it was so easy because I’d already learned the material!!! I feel really bad now because it was so unfair to other schools that have harder health classes. 
If only that A counted as a college-level course!!!
I’m a bit confused about the “multivariable” part. No one in their right mind would invent such a policy, presuming the school offers MVC.
@bodangles there should be a change in policy! there are always people who have more opportunities than you and people who have less opportunities than you. does that mean that people with less opportunities stop campaigning and come to terms with their life? if you can change something, then you should do something about it. policies are comparatively easier to change than some other aspects of life. I just wanted to know what people thought about it. if a lot of people thought the same, I could petition the district or something, but apparently people don’t think we should make a stand to create schools equal. but that’s fine with me; i’m almost done with high school and not doing anything about this would mean less work for me so i’m good.
@MITer94 at my school, you HAVE to take BC before MVC. there’s no going around it. and if you take AB then you cannot take BC or MVC.
@AlphaDragon what i’m saying is that some schools have an unfair advantage because their students get to take AB and then BC. This means 2 semesters of college credit, not to mention double the GPA! but at my school, either you jump into BC and do 2 years of Calculus in 3/4 of a year (rest of the year is AP prep) or you take AB and get 1 semester of college credit and don’t get to take MVC. For sophomores or juniors who take AB, the gap years could be harmful because when you take Calculus 2 in college, you won’t remember as much.
@marie122 I never said that you can’t change your school’s policy. What I took exception to was the tone of your post, complaining about students getting free As. Without trying to sound blunt, suck it up. There will always be loopholes in the system that students will exploit. Your energy would be best spent on self-improvement, not on whining about how other students are taking advantage of the system.
@“Keasbey Nights” oh no I think you misunderstood me. i’m not complaining about the students. i’m complaining about the system itself. high school has turned into a huge GPA game. no one is going there to learn - everyone just wants the GPA! besides I have a right to complain! everyone complains (even you) and I do spend time on self-improvement but I don’t have to spend every breathing moment of my life doing so. if I want to rant on here, I should have the right to! im not doing anything illegal am I? you don’t HAVE to reply. if you don’t have anything constructive to offer and all you want to whine about is how i’m “whining” about something, then please don’t respond. all I want is a reason for why this happens! sorry if you think im being rude, im just being “blunt”.