No more math classes offered at high school!!?? What looks best for harvard?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>Hey Guys,</p>

<p>I am a high school junior and I have taken Geometry Honors, Algebra 2 Honors, Pre-calculus Honors, AP stats and AP Calculus AB. My high school has no more math classes to offer me. I thoroughly enjoy math and would like to pursue it in college so i obviously want to take an advanced class senior year. What are my options and what would look the best for colleges?</p>

<p>I could either take classes at a community college, online classes, or self study. (These are the only options i am aware of) so my question to you is what option would look the best on an application? Is there any other options that i was unaware of? and what class should i study/take (calculus BC, calculus 3 etc.)</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for your responses!!!(i have also posted this in other forums)</p>

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<p>If possible, take classes at a community college AND try to have your high school give you credit for it. Talk to your guidance counselor to see if that is possible.</p>

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<p>This is a question with which we’re struggling for my son. He’s taking AP Calc BC this year, as a junior, and, well, that’s all they offer at his high school. It was a painful struggle to get permission from the school for him to skip pre-calculus (he learned it on his own time) and take BC as well as AP Physics C this year, as well. Glad we did it - he’s having a blast. It would have been brutal to force him to take pre-calc this year. I probably would have yanked him from school and homeschooled him again. He’d have been a little young for the local community college, as he turned 15 in July.</p>

<p>But it does create problems for next year. Because of how his high school’s schedule works, it would be difficult for him to attend a college class during the normal school day. I’m hesitant to have him take a night class, because he often needs the time at night for homework. Also, logistically, unless our local community college (which is near to where we live but about an hour’s distance from his high school) has a Saturday multivariable calculus course, any college option would have to be at the state university up the road from his high school.</p>

<p>I’d like to see whether the school would work with us to perhaps have his current calculus teacher do independent study next year. He’s a phenomenally good (and tough!) teacher. But he’s extremely busy and doesn’t have a lot of time in his schedule. The advantages to this would be 1) great teacher, extremely thorough, 2) logistically, it’d be much, much easier and would save much time (a precious commodity for my son), 3) it would automatically be on his transcript, and 4) my son has a very good relationship with the teacher.</p>

<p>Another option might be to find a poor grad student at the state university and pay him to come to the high school a couple of days per week, and try to persuade the school to recognize that as an independent study course. Downside - that’d be a pretty expensive option. Also, no guarantees I could arrange it.</p>

<p>My son has visited his older brother at Harvard, and knows that this is the caliber of school that he wants to attend (and actually getting into Harvard would be very nice, too). So, whatever solution we develop, it would be nice if it were the option that also best enhanced his application to college.</p>

<p>Any thoughts appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>You should do one of the first two. And you should do whichever one works out better for you, completely apart from what you think will look better on your college applications.</p>

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<p>Truly, what looks best on your Harvard application is not looking as if you’ve spent the last four years trying to strategize for your Harvard application. The students who impress admissions committees at Harvard and its peers are the ones who study the subjects and do the activities that interest them, for the sake of learning those subjects and doing those activities, and do them at a consistently high level.</p>

<p>Moreover, the bitter reality is that you’re probably not getting into Harvard–not because there’s anything the matter with you, but because more than 90% of applicants don’t, and most of the disappointed applicants are every bit as deserving and talented as the ones who are admitted. If that’s the case, why tie yourself in knots trying to please Harvard? Harvard’s probably going to disappoint you anyway.</p>

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<p>You won’t be ready for calculus 3 until you’ve completed BC, or a college class called something like “Calculus II” or “Integral Calculus.” That class would need to cover volume and “solids of rotation,” methods of integration, and power series and Taylor series, at a minimum. AB and BC, or Calc I and Calc II, are calculus of a single variable–that is, calculus in which y is a function of a single independent variable, x. Calc III is multivariable calculus, in which the dependent variable is a function of several independent variables simultaneously; that is to say, z is a function of both x and y, or w is a function of x, y and z. You need full courses in both differential and integral calculus of a single variable before you’re prepared for multivariable calculus.</p>

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<p>@notjoe: Much depends on the flexibility of your son’s high school. Would your son’s high school allow him to take an on-line math course during school hours (when he normally would be scheduled for math) and allow his grade to appear on his high school transcript? That might be a way to go, if they will allow it.</p>

<p>At my son and daughter’s high school, there is a community college across the street. When kids max out on math, the school, in conjunction with the community college, places students in an appropriate class and the credit hours appear on the high school transcript. The school blocks out a double period – one for math and one for lunch – to give the student enough time to go back-and-fourth. I guess the kids eat on the run. What that be an option?</p>

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<p>gibby,</p>

<p>Thanks for the feedback. Generally, my sons’ high school has been pretty flexible, but about this topic, they have not been as flexible. My older son took classes earlier than normally permitted, ran out of classes in Latin and Greek, and the faculty happily invented independent study courses for him. He was a little bored with the English curriculum, so in addition to his regular English class each year, the principal of the school, with a Ph.D. in English and an M.A. in philosophy, did an independent study with him on a topic of mutual agreement. At the end of the year, the principal would round up some of the other English and Theology teachers, and they’d have my son make a presentation and then defend it, and then serve refreshments. Lots of fun. This led to an unqualified, glowing letter of recommendation by the principal.</p>

<p>But the math and science folks are pretty hide-bound. The curriculum is a little limited. And it’s very rigidly enforced. He could have readily been in calculus last year, but my initial attempts to allow a more accelerated curriculum failed, as the senior math teacher - who is under the impression that only freaks of nature can handle calculus before they’re 17 or 18 - opposed it, and she successfully manipulated the process better than me, and thus, he didn’t get to calculus until this year.</p>

<p>However, success breeds success. I told my son that I’d get him the opportunities to accelerate, but it was up to him to do the work and excel. He is more than keeping his end of the bargain. It won’t be possible for the school to oppose in principle nearly anything we put forward for next year. The problems will be logistical in nature. </p>

<p>I’ll have to look into the idea of an on-line course. I think I could probably twist the school’s arm to “bless” such a program and put it on his transcript as an official school-sanctioned “independent study” course. If you or anyone have any recommendations on a particularly good package, I’d welcome the input.</p>

<p>Do you have some sense of how schools look at it when “independent study” shows up on the transcript? I’m guessing it doesn’t hurt, since my older son managed to get into some very good schools with six of them on his.</p>

<p>The more I think about it, if I can pull it off, that might be the single best solution - an on-line course sanctioned by the school. Thanks!</p>

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<p>I would begin your search for on-line courses by looking at edX:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/education/harvard-and-mit-team-up-to-offer-free-online-courses.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/education/harvard-and-mit-team-up-to-offer-free-online-courses.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“https://www.edx.org/[/url]”>https://www.edx.org/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>gibby, thank you for that brilliant idea! I’ll check to see if they have anything appropriate.</p>

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<p>Regrettably, it doesn’t appear there are any calculus courses currently offered from EdX. At least, not that I could see.</p>

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<p>Try Kahn Academy online. <a href=“http://www.khanacademy.org/[/url]”>http://www.khanacademy.org/&lt;/a&gt; Note the math classes offered after calculus. Schools are using Khan’s programs quite a bit these days. This alone could be an answer.</p>

<p>Also, I wouldn’t limit the college class option to community college. There are a lot of colleges that would be fine with him taking a math class as an unmatriculated student.</p>

<p>If the time needed to go to a class is an issue, he can always study it himself with online help (again, Khan). Or maybe there is a mentor in the community.</p>

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<p>Another option is an online college course; there are many regular colleges that offer classes online. If he doesn’t need the HS credit why bother with the independent study - instead ask if they would support him spending a “study hall” in the computer lab where he can work on this class. Otherwise, still use a study hall to complete the offline portion of the work, and submit assignments from home.</p>

<p>He will have a transcript from the college sponsoring the class, much as he would if he takes a class at the community college, but his options would be much broader. </p>

<p>Of course another option might be to apply early (early entry, not sending the application early), so one of the colleges that offers a program designed for students who are skipping part of college. In most cases they can transfer back whatever few credits they need to get their HS diploma (if my D had done this, she would have needed PE and English only, and one elective credit).</p>

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<p>CTScoutmom,</p>

<p>Certainly, in considering on-line courses, we’ll look at those offered by various colleges.</p>

<p>I think it would be important for it to show on his high school transcript. In fact, it may be a state requirement. Our state requires four years of math for a high school diploma. His transcript, at the end of this year, will only reflect three years.</p>

<p>Going to college a year early is not an option. First, having skipped a grade early on, he’s already a year younger than his peers. Next fall, he’ll have just recently turned 16 - I’m not going to set him loose on the world at such a tender age, LOL. Second, he’s a smart kid, and there are certainly colleges that would take him after this year. In fact, he gets mail from some of them. But he’s not a “boy genius,” ready to dazzle academia so much that top tier colleges would overlook his age and his lack of a senior year.</p>

<p>As well, although his interests originally dictated his curricular choices in math, the fact is that, although it’s unheard of at his high school, lots and lots of kids who go to top colleges have a second year of calculus. My older son is finishing Physics 16 this semester at Harvard, and he has often commented bitterly that he wishes he’d have had the opportunity for a second year of calculus, as many of his peers had, because the class would have been easier.</p>

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<p>compmom,</p>

<p>We’re already looking at Khan. Attendance at a local college, as previously mentioned, is the least desirable alternative. It would nearly eliminate time for non-academic interests or extracurriculars.</p>

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<p>notjoe-I concur with compmom’s suggestion to look into online college courses. There are many reputable schools offering them now. Contact your school administrators to see how to get them to give him credit or a pass for them. If the school doesnt offer any alternative, the state cant hold that against him. I would think you would also want to petition the state for approval.</p>

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<p>Notjoe, the State U might be a more realistic option than you think. What I would do is have your kid contact the calc professor and ask if there is a process for secondary students to take classes. Depending on the university registration process you might have to get a letter from the prof/math chair/college dean but usually they are happy to help out precocious young students.</p>

<p>source: I’m a H.S senior taking upper division math at University of Alaska Anch, others friends of mine have done it here, other friends did upper division math at UCLA and U of Utah.</p>

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<p>Probably take a class at a local college. Self study and even online won’t look as “importnat”. Also, would you honestly be able to commit to teaching yourself. I have seen many strong students attempt it and fail. The only “self study” I could see you doing is Calculus BC, because BC is only about 30% more information than AB.</p>

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<p>notjoe - My DS took mvc at CTY online. You definitely need to be self-motivated to take an online math course, and there was a decent amount of work along with tests. Actually, I don’t remember if it was mvc or linear algebra that had a lot of work, as my DS took both. He only requested h.s. credit for MVC as an independent study. He took linear algebra through cty on his own (did not request credit). I believe he also took linear algebra before mvc. CTY also started offering diff. eq. Hope this info helps.</p>

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<p>Desafina,</p>

<p>There is no problem getting the local state university to permit my son to take a course there, and with his high school giving dual credit.</p>

<p>The problem is LOGISTICAL. Please read other posts.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>student2407 - Please read the actual posts made to date. Thanks.</p>

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<p>student4ever:) - What is CTY? Thanks.</p>