<p>My daughter will be a senior this coming year and is planning on doing computer science. She got only a 3 in AP Calc
BC and her high school requires a minimum of 4 for multivariable. She is all upset (and crying) and says she won't get engineering without a multivariable in high school. Is this true?</p>
<p>I would say 95% of US high schools do not have Multivariable Calculus in the curriculum. Many students get into engineering schools without MVC.</p>
<p>The greater issue is what is your daughter going to do for a math class next year.</p>
<p>Tons of kids get into engineering with only pre-calc. I wouldn’t recommend it, unless your school didn’t offer calc, but it’s pretty common for kids to start engineering programs with no calculus at all. She’ll be fine.</p>
<p>FWIW, that’s pretty crappy of the school to do that - if she did fine (B or better) in the class, why does she need a high AP score to keep going. As a parent, I’d complain about that.</p>
<p>She’s destined for a community college humanities major… the horror.</p>
<p>a 3 on the AP exam typically signifies very low proficiency compared to the level needed for calc 3/diff eq considering that’s like the lower 25% of test takers</p>
<p>It’s very tough this year, because even though you see all kinds of people on CC reporting 5’s on the AP Calc, it’s not typical at all this year in our area. If you were in an area that was affected by a lot of snow days, then the curriculum may have been skimmed, and the school should make allowances for good students to continue in multivar. To be honest, we do know a couple of kids who applied for engineering programs, were rejected, and were told it was because they were competing against applicants from their own school who did have multivar. So, I would try hard to get an exception for your daughter, because you have to remember that she will first be competing against other applicants from her school and school district.</p>
<p>My school only goes up to calculus bc and we send tons of kids to engineering. Also, for the whole you can’t take multivariable calc without a 3 thing, it does make sense. Because what’s the point of going higher if your gonna have to retake it again in college?</p>
<p>Although what @Leyland said is true and as someone who took the exam (got a 5) some people could have easily been thrown off by some of the FRQ, the twitter account that posts the AP Exam Statistics said 22% of students received a 0/9 on the last FRQ, but coupled with some of the other curve balls in the FRQ it was more difficult for people in the east coast due to the snow as they might not have covered the Middle Material in depth or the late material at all. However that being said the AP Account said that 48.5% of students received a 5 on the BC Calculus exam a ~3% increase from the previous year. </p>
<p>OP IMO if your daughter got a B(85%) or higher talk to the school, the AP Exam this year was not as similar to previous years and parts of it though could be prepared for, no one expected them #6c for instance. If the school says no try to get a petition going to change the policy since it is most likely a school-wide policy not an institutional one. Also go talk to the MVC teacher directly to see if she can make an exception. </p>
<p>I know for some Engineering Schools they want you to take the highest level of Calculus offered at the high school to be considered seriously (technically it’s “strongly recommended”). But if all else fails consider dual-enrollment at local Community College or University. </p>
<p>I would 1) make an appointment at the HS and discuss the situation. If she did well all year in BC calc and just didn’t do great on the AP test, perhaps an exception could be made 2) I would have her take some kind of math either in the HS or maybe at a CC (or if those aren’t options, maybe on a college level online program) to keep fresh with the subject 3) my HS and many others don’t offer math past calculus BC so she certainly has enough to get into an engineering program</p>
<p>Was this her first year of calculus,or did she take AB separately last year? What is her AB subscore on the BC test? </p>
<p>Is she proficient in the material but someone who has difficulty with the 3+ hour exams? Or is her grasp of the material tenuous? </p>
<p>In general, does anyone know how colleges handle it when you have math past AP Calc but had AP exam scores below the level they accept? </p>
<p>As for AP Calc BC, around 2/3 of students are getting 4 or 5. Your D should probably worry more about the proficiency in Calc than not having MVC in high school. MVC is not in regular HS curriculum anyway and it is a college level class. It is not a requirement for even top engineering schools. My D was accepted by 3 of the top 10 engineering schools with only taking AP Calc BC in senior year.</p>
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<p>There should not be an issue, since the student has already completed calculus BC in high school, which is typically the highest level available (multivariable calculus is often not offered, and may not be that useful unless it is offered as a college course with transferable credit).</p>
<p>The real issue is that a 3 on the AP exam indicates that knowledge of calculus is just passing, but may not be strong enough to do well in future math or math-intensive course work. Many colleges recommend that students scoring 3 on AP calculus exams retake frosh calculus (some only give placement for higher scores).</p>
<p>Here is an example of an engineering division’s advice for new frosh with AP calculus credit. Note that it includes final exam problems from the school’s calculus courses, so that students can assess their knowledge based on the school’s expectations.
<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/new-students/choosing-an-appropriate-first-math-course.html”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/current-undergraduates/new-students/choosing-an-appropriate-first-math-course.html</a></p>
<p>unfortunately a score of 3 on the calc exam does signify lacking skills/knowledge in calculus, which is why i understand her school’s policies. for MV you do need a strong background in both calc I and calc II(many 5 scorers still had trouble with the subject in my class last year). is it possible for her to take AP statistics?</p>
<p>As others have said, a 3 on BC is not great. It will help if your school is known for low BC scores. Otherwise, I took MVC as a Junior last year and I don’t believe there was that much if anything from calc BC. Though it is harder, I found that most of it was just putting Calc AB into 3 dimensions and then adding a few formulas (though this was a community college level class, not sure how that compares to her HS’s). Otherwise, if she really wants to go into engineering, look into retaking BC over the summer at a community college or something.</p>
<p>Not taking MVC shouldn’t be a dealbreaker in admissions. It’s not typical of most applicants to have completed it.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the replies, we talked to her school counselor back in summer, they said since this is a dual credit program thru U of I, it is the university’s requirement and they couldn’t make any exception. She is taking AP stats this year (and doing just fine, she even thinks is it easy). She did get A’s in Trig/Calc A in Soph year and B+/A- in Calc BC in Junior Year. Her AB subcore was 4. She thinks she may have bubbled wrong as there is no way she could have gotten 3, or so she feels. She plans on retaking the AP exam this year and if time and opportunity permits, may look at doing MVC in a community college in the summer before going to college.
She got accepted into a few engineering colleges already (Purdue CS and Pitt Biomedical engineering), waiting for U of I and a few more. </p>