I don’t intend to do anything STEM related in college(I’ll probably major in Government or History), and am considering taking AP Statistics instead, along with AP Macro/Microeconomics. Would this be significantly detrimental to my application?
If I didn’t make it clear, I’m currently a junior.
drop Econ and take Calc.
I can take both, I just don’t think I’ll do well in Calc. Oh well.
Any other opinions?
Take statistics or college algebra instead of Calc. You don’t need calculus for history or political science. Don’t torture yourself. Calculus is only needed for math, engineering, science, or architecture majors. I would also suggest college algebra over statistics if you can because I heard statistics is harder then calc, but it depends on the person. Statistics is more theoretical.
Uh no. Calc is needed for social science as well, particularly college Econ.
Uh, no. Stats is applied math. And AP Stats is anything but theoretical. (Still a great course, however.)
btw: for many years, D “recommended” Calc on its website. And this is the important point: the rigor of your HS transcript is a factor in admissions, and by definition, Stats and Econ are AP Lites. If you were my kid, I’d recommend Stats+AB for the rigor.
tbf: Calc AB is an AP Lite, as well, since it covers in a full year, what most colleges cover in a semester. In contrast, Calc BC covers a ~full year of college math.
If you were my daughter / son I would advise taking Calculus, either AB or BC depending on your situation. It’s a foundation for many things including, as bluebayou points out, social sciences (especially econ). It may even enhance your application because the admissions committee will see that a Government or History major sees the benefit in studying calculus. I would advise every student to eventually take stats too as well as macro / micro. But take calc before stats and calc and stats before micro in order to fully benefit from the micro course.
Take calc, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take
I would recommend taking AP Calc if you can handle it.
I would recommend taking Calc. When we went on college tours to mostly Ivy and HS colleges, and there were more than 30 info sessions, there were several comments over and over and over again. “Take Calc and not Stats in HS” was one of them (sometimes they even said they don’t care if it is AB or BC but they want to see Calc. Although I agree that statistics long-term is more useful for most of us, you can take Stats in college to fulfill your math requirement. But don’t cut yourself off from a college you might like … take Calc AB.
Definitely take calculus
Two things we heard at all top schools:
Take Calc.
Take Physics.
Your intended major is irrelevant.
I got into Dartmouth as a Bio major and never took any form of calculus. I opted for Ap Stat instead. Take the classes you feel most comfortable taking and feel you will perform best in. There’s no point to taking Ap Calc if you won’t do well.
One doesn’t get into D “as” any kind of major, even if one expresses interest in it.
Sure, some kids get in without calculus. Some kids also get in with 29 on the ACT. If the OP is really weak in math and genuinely feels that they will bomb calculus, then AP Stats is probably a better choice. But it will not strengthen the application.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
This thread was started in February. As the original poster has decided to take AP Calculus AB, the situation has been resolved and she needs no further guidance on the subject. Closing thread.