I’m seeing a fair number of high school seniors indicating in the accepted/rejected threads at top schools reporting senior (sometimes even junior) math classes like Linear Algebra, Discrete Math, Real Analysis etc. These are typically mid to upper level college math courses. Wondering if this is the new normal for applicants to top schools as well as 15 plus APs etc? Anyone else noticing this?
For kids nowadays on advanced math tracks, AP Calc BC is completed at the end of 11th grade. Sometimes even sooner. Which leaves a whole year or more to take more math classes at a university or community college, or sometimes even at a HS if there is enough demand. So it’s common while still in HS to pick up Multivariate Calculus (labeled as Calc 3 sometimes), then Differential Equations and/or Linear Algebra. Discrete Math after that if they still have room.
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/research/2018/Program-Summary-Report-2018.pdf indicates that about 46,000 students took the AP calculus BC exam in 11th grade or earlier. This is about 1.3% of the total number of high school graduates per year (3.6 million), or about 1.8% of those who start college every year (2.5 million, including those going to community college).
So completing calculus BC in 11th grade or earlier is not exactly “normal”, though it happens enough that many high school students, teachers, and parents would have heard of such a student. In terms of “top colleges”, note that many of the super-advanced-in-math students may be too one-dimensional to get past the admissions processes at those colleges (i.e. may not have top grades in English and history, or may write an essay that does not resonate with an admission reader, or may appear too nerdy to make a good impression in the alumni interview), and may not have the unearned privilege of legacy to help them in to those colleges which use that.
Obviously, it is best for such a student if there is a college conveniently nearby where s/he can take the more advanced math courses, in order to be better set up for subject credit and advanced placement in math when s/he goes to college “for real”.
(Caveat - I am not an admissions person, just a parent who has followed this with interest for a number of years, especially when my kids were in middle school and needing more/faster math but not getting it because of politics at the district level).
There’s a lot of variation in how fast/ far kids are allowed to accelerate. Some school districts have clamped down a lot on anything that would get kids to calculus before 12th grade, while some highly gifted homeschooled kids or kids with more flexible schools are able to take calculus in 8th or 9th. I’ve been told by quite a few people here and other places that it doesn’t hurt to not be accelerated as much. There are a few schools that expect to see that a student has completed math through Calculus BC (but not very many of those), and none that expect anything beyond that.
For what it is worth, few colleges require or expect students to have single variable calculus (AP calculus AB or BC) while in high school: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21642599/#Comment_21642599
So taking calculus or more advanced math while in high school is generally more of a bonus than a requirement or expectation for almost all college-bound high school students (although it can be a valuable bonus for students going into math-heavy majors, even if it is not a requirement or expectation at the college).
There are no schools that expect a student to have completed Calc BC. There are a handful of colleges which require some level of calc, and others that recommend. See this thread:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/2015601-what-us-universities-explicitly-state-that-calculus-is-required-or-expected-for-frosh-applicants.html
Also, keep in mind that the students posting here, even the ones targeting HYPSM and the like, are not a representative subset of high-achieving HS students.
But by no stretch of the imagination should one consider post-BC to be the new normal.
I would have also thought this to be the case but I should have made my post clearer that I am really referring to top 10 schools. It seems to me apart from overloading on APs, I’m seeing more kids reporting having taken these advanced math courses on the acceptance threads.
It depends on the HS and the student’s interest. My son took Calc BC as an 11th grader and this year is taking calc 3 via the university of Illinois online for college credit. It’s an actual class in his HS but the course is on the computer. I supposed you could take 15 AP classes but mine took 8-9 each and that was plenty.
Sorry, I misremembered Harvey Mudd as stating up through BC but I guess they don’t specify that.
The perception of a math arms race does seem to be widespread enough that there are threads where students or parents are worried about being “behind in math” because the student is on track to take calculus in 12th grade (which is actually ahead, +1 track). Seems similar to the AP arms race where students and parents are worried that 5-8 AP courses is “not enough” compared to 15 or so (though it does depend on which AP courses).
The other thing that seems odd about the perception of a math arms race is that many posters on these forums recommend that students start over in calculus 1 in college, repeating all of their AP calculus (and more advanced math if applicable) credit. Seems like trying to accelerate math as much as possible in middle and high school only to throw it all away in college is unnecessary stress and waste.
@Pickmen I’m not sure if it’s more common than it used to be… you might be right. Off the top of my head I would say there are probably two things going on. One is that STEM careers are super popular right now and parents are doing a lot early on to steer their kids in that direction, so it may be that more of the bright kids are getting into advanced math courses early on because of that. The other is just that the type of kids who can succeed at advanced math courses at younger ages are also the type of kids who are going to do well overall in admissions so they probably are overrepresented in the list of who got into a top 5 school. (Not sure I phrased that right… I’m not saying that kids who don’t have the opportunity to take Linear Algebra in 10th grade won’t succeed at MIT … and MIT knows that. So don’t panic if you didn’t. Doing well in advanced math in high school is one way to show your brilliance and ability to work hard but it isn’t the only way.)
Totally agree wtih @ucbalumnus on both posts.
People told my daughter she was nuts to start with Calc II this year in college. It’s definitely the minority of students that skipped to Calc II and even fewer in Calc III for engineering. I think because these tend to be “weed out courses,” and students are looking for an easier A. Same for pre-meds.
CC is definitely not representative of students and parents as a whole.
My daughter’s very STEM focused high school didn’t offer anything above Calc AB until this past year when one students worked with the teacher to self study for BC. It certainly didn’t seem to impact college acceptances for my daughter to “only” have gotten through AB.
https://features.thecrimson.com/2018/freshman-survey/academics/ shows that 24.9% of 2018 Harvard frosh had math beyond calculus BC while in high school. While much higher than the 1.8% for all new college frosh, that still does not make math beyond calculus BC while in high school the “new normal” even for Harvard (note: at the other end, 8.3% did not have calculus, while 32.4% had calculus AB and 34.4% had calculus BC).
Our kids attend a school where the advanced math track leads to Calc BC in 11th grade (though a student can opt for calc AB first), just as ProfessorPlum168 said. Every year, there are a few kids who are advanced beyond that (BC in 10th).
The school’s regular classes include multi variable calc and logic and probability, which is how the extra-advanced kids typically fill their next 2 math yrs.
It’s great when you have a very “mathy” kid, because they can be challenged, but even with great grades, etc., it doesn’t seem to help kids without a hook get into the top schools.
Again, 10 colleges is not representative of the 2500 4-year colleges in the US.
Students who are advanced in math (and their parents) should also be aware of the calculus trap:
https://artofproblemsolving.com/articles/calculus-trap.
As an FYI, and presumably Harvard is one of the top 10 colleges, it is almost impossible for an incoming Harvard student who wishes to continue math to bypass any course beyond Calc BC. For those students, they are “encouraged” to take an advanced version of multivariable and linear algebra. While helpful because these courses use proofs which are not generally taught in HS MVC, to @ucbalumnus 's point, the rush to accelerate comes to a screeching halt upon entering Harvard before even considering those students that opt, by their own choice, to retake calc I and/or II.
Taking BC as a junior in HS seems a bit more common in the SF Bay Area, especially here in the Silicon Valley area.
Even though my college freshman had taken MV Calc as a senior last year and received an A, her non-Top 10 school’s (but high in the USNWR) advice was to take the advanced version of MV Calc again as a college freshman. And is, though not substantially more difficult than the local HS’s class last year. The college gave full credit for BC, so no Calc 1 and 2.
Well, not exactly a “screeching halt”, since the more advanced options of multivariable calculus and linear algebra (22, 23, 25, 55 instead of 21) include more rigor and/or additional material, so that the student who enters Harvard having taken math beyond calculus BC while in high school will not just be repeating what s/he already knows (particularly if s/he chooses 25 or 55).
http://www.math.harvard.edu/pamphlets/beyond.pdf
Who would the students taking Math 1 at Harvard after math beyond calculus BC in high school be? Pre-meds?
My D took Calc BC as a Junior. Only a handful of kids from her BC class took Calc 3 at the local university as seniors but she waited to take it in college b/c she was kinda done with Calc for a while after BC.
More kids took AP Stats (much easier) as seniors. She instead took Finite Math through an online STEM high school program in which she was co-enrolled and she really liked that as a math change of pace.
Interestingly, she was thinking of ‘re-taking’ Calc 2 but her advisor suggested she take Calc 3 as a first-year b/c of the professor teaching it and she said it was actually easier than Calc 2. Which seems odd but it’s worked out fine. I think she’s getting a B+ in that class and seems happy with that given difficulty, etc…
She’s not a math or engineering major but is bio and going through Calc 3 is recommended for PhD science track students…
I was being slightly melodramatic. 
Like I said, the proof learning is beneficial. The additional topics in 25/55 are often (depending on the instructor) covered in a later course anyway, so it’s not like the math concentrator would never be exposed to them, and usually end up making one or more higher-level courses anti-reqs, as well as making the workload of 25/55 substantially higher than the norm. I suppose some students are OK with that, though.
I have no scientific data on this; I just shake my head.