Online multi-variable calculus classes

<p>My son, a high school senior has completed AP Calc BC in junior year. He is looking to do a one semester long on-line multi-variable calculus class that is recognized by the UCs. If anyone has info please can you share details - thanks.</p>

<p>Just curious…doesn’t his hs offer multi-variable calc for the kids just like your son who completed CalcBC in their junior year? Parents…does your hs offer this class? ( ours does, and it is a public hs in the midwest)</p>

<p>Stanford’s EPGY program may fit the bill.
[EPGY</a> Mathematics Department](<a href=“http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/]EPGY”>http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/)</p>

<p>[EPGY</a> Frequently Asked Questions](<a href=“http://epgy.stanford.edu/overview/faq.html#credits]EPGY”>http://epgy.stanford.edu/overview/faq.html#credits)</p>

<p>What sorts of credits can I get for EPGY courses?</p>

<p>All students successfully completing courses with EPGY are eligible to receive transcripts from the Stanford University Continuing Studies Program. These transcripts, which bear the seal of the Stanford University Registrar, show the courses that a student has completed from EPGY, together with the grades obtained.</p>

<p>Students who wish to transfer this credit to their school may do so. Decisions concerning whether or not the credit is accepted by the institution to which it is transferred are up to the receiving institution.</p>

<p>Students who complete courses at the Advanced Placement level are encouraged to take the corresponding Advanced Placement Examinations.</p>

<p>he might also want to “take” a free MIT open course math class instead , in case the UC’s wont give credit for formal online classes.
[Free</a> Online Course Materials | MIT OpenCourseWare](<a href=“http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm]Free”>MIT OpenCourseWare | Free Online Course Materials)</p>

<p>Our HS (large, well-regarded, affluent suburban, public) does not offer math beyond Calculus. Last year, ~10 juniors completed AP Calculus BC. Most of them are now taking AP Statistics as seniors. </p>

<p>I looked into having my D2012 take MV Calc at the local community college, but the class times didn’t work around her HS schedule. UC may recognize some online options (e.g., Stanford EPGY), but they’re expensive and require a lot of self-motivation. My D preferred to just take AP Statistics with her friends.</p>

<p>Our HS also does not offer calculus-based physics (e.g., AP Physics C). I wish they did, as that would at provide an option for kids who have already taken calculus to keep current on those skills.</p>

<p>CTY offers MVC, but I’m not sure if the credits transfer. You can probably check at ctyjhu.org. Even without transfer of credit, some colleges offer placement exams to determine what course you should take. </p>

<p>@Katie: Our school does not offer MVC - public h.s. in Northeast</p>

<p>Our local HS offers nothing beyond precalc - though seniors can take an online calculus course accredited by the University of Illinois.</p>

<p>What about BYU? Or Florida Virtual School? I’m not even sure if they offer MV Calc, but it’s something to look into. </p>

<p>My school in CA only goes up to Calc AB, and only ~20 kids take it each year.</p>

<p>I have a few friends who took Stanford’s EPGY Multivariable calc their senior year, and from what I’ve heard, they weren’t huge fans of the class. (No personal experience with it here, though; so take that with a grain of salt). </p>

<p>I’d definitely consider MIT OCW, if your son is motivated enough to stick with it. Speaking as a student in the actual, physical multivariable class (18.02) at MIT right now, I probably would have struggled if I was learning it on my own. The psets can be tricky to figure out, particularly alone, but I’d still consider it worthwhile if he can stick with it.</p>

<p>I would not recommend BYU. DD1 did a HS math course to improve a grade and it is basically “here is the $179 textbook, do problems A, B, and C, take 3 tests, and be done with it”. The education material presented in online form was nowhere near what I would have expected. </p>

<p>In her case it went well because all she wanted was to improve a grade, which she did, but to learn the material you’re basically given the textbook and that’s it.</p>

<p>Our son used UIUC’s NetMath program many years ago for Calc III. The course uses prepackaged courseware that runs on top of Mathematica so the student has to learn how to use and program in Mathematica. The material is taught in Mathematica and the student answers problems in Mathematica. Mathematica notebooks are then submitted for grading. He had to use a proctor for exams. I was pretty impressed with the depth of the course. The courseware that you buy goes way beyond the course coverage (textbooks are usually like this too).</p>

<p>The courseware is also used by Suffolk University but Suffolk charges twice as much as UIUC. At Suffolk, you get a professor that works with you while you work with other students or maybe grad students. You get UIUC credit and there’s no indication that it is an online course. The online course is also offered to UIUC students.</p>

<p>BCEagle, I’m assuming that’s the same online calc program used at our local HS, so apparently it’s also available to HS students, at least in Illinois.</p>

<p>^^ 3 years of math is the MINIMUM , not the maximum number of math classes need for acceptance at any UC campus. Students accepted at Cal or UCLA have an average of 4+ years of math.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. EPGY is available at some high-schools too. Students at a local high-school have access to a bunch of EPGY courses paid for by the school. NetMath also offers Linear Algebra and Probablity and Statistics (Calc-based) too.</p>

<p>Sorry, I accidentally deleted the post that Menloparkmom is referring to. I was suggesting that UC’s only require 3 years of math to meet the A-G requirements, so he may not have to worry if his MV Calc class “is recognized by UC’s.” </p>

<p>Our high school sends dozens of kids to UC’s. It does not offer MV Calc. Most kids who take AP Calc BC their junior year go on to take AP Stats. My oldest daughter took MV Calc at a community college her senior year. I don’t think it made a difference at Berkeley, but it probably helped her get into Harvey Mudd</p>

<p>My research is a couple of years old, but here’s what I found when I was looking. We chose the UIUC net math course. I thought it was a very practical course – probably more engineer-like than pure math. Still, I thought the graphs in Mathematica were good since my problem with Calc III in college was visualizing the curves.</p>

<hr>

<p>Here are the Multi-variable calculus courses I’ve found with a distance education option:</p>

<p>EPGY
[EPGY</a> University Mathematics M52A](<a href=“http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/M52A/]EPGY”>http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/M52A/)
Pretty much the old stand-by. Proven quality. Big name. Always worth considering.
They use the Anton book for multi-variable.
They’re on the quarter system and teach Multi-var Differentiable Calc as 1 quarter, Multi-var Integral Calculus as 1 quarter, and then you must take Linear Algebra (1 quarter) before you can take DEs.
There are video lectures and it’s broken down into lots of lessons (49 lessons in the 1st course). There’s a sample lecture online.</p>

<p>Wisconsin
<a href=“http://learn.wisconsin.edu/catframe.asp?Dest=course&idweb=35[/url]”>http://learn.wisconsin.edu/catframe.asp?Dest=course&idweb=35&lt;/a&gt;
Self-paced. A year to complete.
15 assignments.
There’s a linear algebra course available, also.</p>

<p>Louisiana State University
<a href=“http://is.lsu.edu/coursefactsheet.asp?nid=301&Rubric=MATH&CourseNr=2057&Version=U[/url]”>http://is.lsu.edu/coursefactsheet.asp?nid=301&Rubric=MATH&CourseNr=2057&Version=U&lt;/a&gt;
Uses the Stewart book, which my husband calls the Encyclopedia of Stewart.
This is a traditional correspondence course, not an online course.
Offers a choice of subsequence course: Linear Algebra OR DEs & Linear Algebra in one course.</p>

<p>University of Texas
<a href=“http://web.austin.utexas.edu/courses/dec/college/coursedetails.cfm?CourseID=283&CourseTitle=Sequences,%20Series,%20and%20Multivariable%20Calculus[/url]”>http://web.austin.utexas.edu/courses/dec/college/coursedetails.cfm?CourseID=283&CourseTitle=Sequences,%20Series,%20and%20Multivariable%20Calculus&lt;/a&gt;
Uses a textbook from 1992 – Stein & Barcellos.
There are no subsequent courses available through distance ed.</p>

<p>University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne
[Calculus</a> III (Mathematica)](<a href=“http://www.online.uillinois.edu/catalog/CourseDetail.asp?CourseID=782]Calculus”>http://www.online.uillinois.edu/catalog/CourseDetail.asp?CourseID=782)
This is a Mathematica based course. They use courseware from MathEverywhere and severely discounted student versions of Mathematica (approx $25 for the one year version).
Offers both a DEs course and a Linear Algebra course online.</p>

<p>University of Minnesota
[Independent</a> and Distance Learning](<a href=“http://idlwebdb.cce.umn.edu/details2.asp?id=MATH-2263-03]Independent”>http://idlwebdb.cce.umn.edu/details2.asp?id=MATH-2263-03)
Also uses the Stewart book (like LSU).
9 months to finish each course.
It’s a “printed” (i.e., not online) course.
Also offers a Linear Algebra class online, which can be taken before or after Multivariable.</p>

<p>Suffolk University (Boston)
[Distance</a> Calculus @ Shorter University - Syllabi of Courses](<a href=“http://www.distancecalculus.com/syllabi/]Distance”>Syllabi - Distance Calculus @ Roger Williams University)
VERY self-paced (you have up to a year after the last day of the semester in which you start to complete).
Calc III uses Calculus & MathLink software. They offer both Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, which uses the Mathematica-based courseware from Math Everywhere.</p>

<p>Tulsa Community College
[Distance</a> Learning | Tulsa Community College](<a href=“http://www.tulsa.cc.ok.us/dl/]Distance”>http://www.tulsa.cc.ok.us/dl/)
This one would be cheapest for us, because in-state tuition is so low. Plus, TCC actually mentions a special admission option for academically accelerated students. Not self-paced. A fairly standard Calc III course. They also offer Differential Equations to fill the second semester.</p>

<p>CTY
[CTYOnline</a> course list & schedules](<a href=“http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline/courses.html]CTYOnline”>http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline/courses.html)
Another option my dd just found is to take Linear Algebra and then Multivariable at CTY.
At first, I thought this was the EPGY course that CTY was reselling, but it’s not.
The pre-reqs are in the opposite order (EPGY requires multivariable before linear, CTY requires linear before multivariable).
The multivariable book CTY uses is the Stewart book (same as LSU and UMinn).
The linear book is by David Lay.</p>

<p>Non-accredited option
Courseware from Math Everywhere ($45)
Mathematica student version from Wolfram ($149 for unlimited time, less than that for time limited)
This is essentially the same as the courses from University of Illinois, but with no transcript, tutor, or proctored test.</p>

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<p>Completion of precalculus or calculus with a C or higher grade fulfills UC’s admission requirement of “3 years of high school math” (because precalculus is already considered the fourth level of high school math), so UC admission requirements are not an issue here.</p>

<p>In order to get placement into more advanced math courses at some universities that strictly enforce prerequisites, or to show completion of the courses at a college for fulfillment of major requirements, it is best to take the course at an actual college whose course is accepted for transfer credit. California community college courses are generally well accepted by UCs (see [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) ); other courses may have to be individually evaluated.</p>

<p>Leaning towards EPGY M52A at this point - any thoughts on whether this will suffice as the fourth year of Math or if M52B will also be needed. I notice M52A has 49 lectures -does anyone know how long each lecture is?</p>

<p>It might be sufficient to count as high school math (would be up to you and your school), but you definitely wouldn’t place out of anything in college later. It’s approximately half of the multi-variable course at most schools (52a is differential and 52B is integral and each is a quarter long at Stanford).</p>

<p>yes I realize it wont get him college credit - not too concerned about that - just want to show that he did do math in senior year and did not slack off (he is doing AP Biology, AP Literature, AP Govt & Politics and AP Computer Science A).</p>