Comp sci is not considered math at our HS. I would worry that some colleges don’t view it as math either.
My daughter has been looking into University of MInnesota. I believe there is a requirement for four years of math and preferred math class senior year. preferred in this case in my opinion means required. My daughter has the unique situation of having BC last year and AP stats this year. She had no plans of taking math senior year. But she is taking AP chemistry next year and the school will accept that as a math class
Neither AP Comp Sci or AP Chemistry are math classes but CS has a slight edge on credibility. AP Physics C has more mathiness than either.
Calc BC (on semester) comes after Calc AB (two semesters) at our school so not many kids finish it up before Junior Year and we have IB HL math so there’ is not much of a problem of kids running out of math…
I personally kind of hate the trend of very mathy kids taking AP Stats after BC. If anything, the order should be reversed.
Typically our order is Algebra 2, Trig/calc A, BC, then either multi variable or stats senior year… there are some who had multi junior year and take stats senior year. Some juniors have both BC and stats. At our school AB and BC are full year. The reason some don’t take math like my daughter senior year, is they take both AP Bio and AP Chemistry both are 1.5 periods.
You all live in a different world than me. The standard course sequence in our local HS is common core 1-4. Kids who are fancier than that take algebra 2, geometry, trig, calc or precalc. I homeschool, but I keep up with local trends. I don’t have mathy kids, so it wouldn’t matter to us anyway, but the kids around here are not doing the kinds of sequences mentioned here- it wouldn’t even be possible. I guess I feel bad for them when they’re applying and thinking they’re on even footing in competing.
Our fairly small independent school (~90 kids per grade in HS) has multiple paths through math that diverge as early as 7th or 8th grade. “Most” kids do geometry 9, alg2/trig 10, precalc 11, calc 12. But a few kids do alg 1 in 9 and then proceed, lots of kids do an accelerated geometry in 9 that leads to a 2-year calc sequence in 11/12, and some mathy kids finish that by sequence by 11 and have multivar in 12. My D20 suffered through the accelerated sequence in 9 and 10, started the two-year calc this fall and quickly switched to the 1-year calc class with mostly seniors who were on the regular sequence all along. She’ll do advanced stats next year. No AP classes at the school and few kids take AP tests so that takes some pressure off sequencing.
When my older kids were going throught the process (graduated HS 2015,2016), a very similar question was asked regularly at the info sessions where multiple top schools (ivys, u chicago, duke, rice, etc-- they travel in a packs --lol) would come and talk. The Admissions counselors said to be careful. They want to see a math senior year. If you run out of math at your high school, they expect you to find one. They suggested on-line or at a local college. That was a few years ago. The way CC reads, it looks like things are getting more and more competitive. I would suggest having your student contact the admissions office and get a straight answer from their top choices. Personally, I would hope most schools would be reasonable and realize that Computer Science gives the students a critical foundation that will serve them well no matter what college they end up at, but it never hurts to clarify. I remember specifically one parent arguing how hard his student worked to finish the math sequesnce early so that his student could fit in some physics class, and he was shut down. That very conversation actually knocked that particular school off my kid’s list.
Best of luck.
My 2 college students looked at top schools, one played by the rules and followed everything the schools said to do, the other followed their passions and did what they felt was right for them. They both ended up with unbelievably amazing educations, incredible opportunities, and thoroughly enjoying their college experiences. What I’m trying to say is that in most cases, it all works out-- but not always how you planned. Now, my 2020 is a perfectly normal, middle of the road kid with more passion in one finger than the other two had between them.This is going to be an entirely different college hunt.
Has anyone toured Towson in Maryland? We toured it last week and we didn’t even make it through the end of the tour. I was hoping someone had some insight that would keep it on my list. Its a school of 20,000 with dorm rooms for 5K and 85% of freshman live on campus so numerically it sounds like nearly everyone moves off campus after freshman year. That’s fine, but the tour guide repeatedly called it a commuter school. We were there on a nearly 70 degree sunny day. During our nearly 3 hours on campus we saw a single skateboard and a single bike. We hardly saw any students (it was a Tuesday from 11:30-2:30). When classes changed and we got to see a few hundred students going from place to place we saw 4 sets of people talking, only 2 of them smiling. Everyone else had headphones on or airpods in. No one looked unhappy, just unengaged. Definitely not the welcoming, engaging home we were hoping for.
It feels like every time we go to a college fair or visit a school, it comes off the list. LOL. It feels like we are running out of schools to apply to.
@mugglemom thanks for that information on Towson. We had also considered traveling to it over spring break for a tour but it did not make the list for the reasons you have confirmed and others. No real residential “community” feel moved it way down as an option so we toured elsewhere.
@MuggleMom S19 and I toured Towson last fall. I had a completely different impression. In fact, I was prepared not to like it based on preconceived notions from 30 years ago when I had a couple friends who went there. I was pleasantly surprised. We saw lots of people walking along together, talking with each other, etc. During our tour, our guide repeatedly saw friends as we walked along, and they exchanged greetings with each other. For a large school, it did not feel that big to me as it seemed like most of the classroom buildings were concentrated in the same area of campus such that it would be easy to bump into friends while walking to class. I was also surprised at how “green”the campus was - lots of trees, etc. I was expecting a lot more concrete. Our guide didn’t talk about percentage of commuters but for me, compared to a place like UMBC (which I have not toured but have been on campus several times), it seemed to us that there was much more of a community feel.
Contrasted with University of Delaware, where everything was so spread out, we did not have the same sense of community. There our tour guide was a commuter - based on spread out everything was, I specifically asked her…”do you ever randomly bump into friends or see many of your friends as you are walking around campus?” Her response was “no, not unless we specifically make plans to meet up.” That was really telling to me just how large it is. That said, D17 has a friend who is thriving there but she is a completely different type of kid than S19. Comparing the two, we felt Towson seemed to have more of a community feel - I expected it to feel like a school of 20K but it really didn’t. We know several kids who are now sophomores and juniors who are very happy there.
S19 opted to go somewhere else. Towson was his affordable, in state option in case he didn’t get recruited for his sport elsewhere. Prior to our tour, I was worried he’d be “settling” if that was his best/only option but after our tour, I had completely changed my mind and would have been comfortable if that’s where he ended up. More importantly, he liked it as well. He’s a B/B+ student so he wasn’t applying to top schools, and he did end up with some good choices for him, but bottom line was that we had a much different impression of Towson after our tour than you apparently did. Isn’t it funny how we had such different experiences?
A friend’s daughter had a great experience at Towson. She was very involved in her sorority with service and leadership positions and she was a Comp Sci major who got a job quickly after graduating.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek @VickiSoCal @AlwaysLearn @MuggleMom Thanks so much for your input. My daughter has doubled up on math the last 2 years: as a soph taking Precalc/Stats and Junior taking AP Calc AB/AP Stats with A’s in all classes. So at this point she’s had a lot math – more than most. I will have her check in with her college counselor on this but it sounds like she should probably take AP Calc BC over AP Comp Sci to be on the safe side.
(cue the virtual eye roll and head shaking).
@fencingmom she has 5 years of math in high school with 2 AP classes. She’s fine! Take AP Comp Sci and enjoy.
For those looking to track college application deadlines and requirements, you may be interested in a PDF doc that CB provides that lists helpful information like this for all colleges on the Common App: https://app.commonapp.org/ca4app/application-requirements/PublicFile?fn=ReqGrid.pdf
Yes, AP Calc would be the smart and safe choice but technically she has had 4 years of math in HS. It isn’t as if she is counting two years of junior high math and only taking two years in high school.
If I was an adcom reading her application, I would wonder why she took that much math early on and didn’t continue it into her senior year.
@lkg4answers Well, she loves math and stats but she’s really just interested in trying something new and taking interesting classes her senior year. I guess she feels she knows calc and where it’s going, but she hasn’t had any CS exposure save for very little in middle school.
Is AP Comp Sci interesting?? A good class to have under your belt for anyone or just STEM kids??
She’s not sure what she wants major in college but is STEM oriented. That said, she’s trying to look at her senior year not as a way to stack up the AP’s but to explore some new ideas and take on new challenges. Like everything, we have to strike the balance.
If it were my kid, and she’d had 4 years of math (8 semesters), then I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s like colleges saying they want kids to have 4 years of a foreign language, when what MOST mean is that they want a student to have taken the 4th level of a foreign language. Plus, I don’t see the need to take BC Calc following AB Calc, but whatever. I’d have her do Comp Sci if that’s what she is interested in taking.
@fencingmom yes, I understand her logic and reasoning for not taking math. I just wonder how her application (without math senior year) would look to an adcom when placed next to someone who had taken math their senior year.
We hear over and over that schools evaluate rigor and want students to challenge themselves to the level that is appropriate for them. Could she explain why she didn’t take math in the extra comments section? Would she be able to rationalize rigor and that she challenged herself in math?
@VickiSoCal @4kids4us I agree with your Towson comments 100%. I know someone who graduated recently and LOVED her time there. I would love to say my daughter was misrepresenting things, but I was there. I kept asking the tour guide (who was horrible by the way) where is everyone. And he kept answering that they only come to campus for their classes and meetings and leave. Unbeknownst to the other, we both counted conversations among people we say and counted the same number. It was so sad because it was pretty close to the top of my list for her.
Fingers crossed the rest at least stay on her list.
@MuggleMom if you live close enough, perhaps give it some time and go back for another visit just to walk around if it’s a school you want her to reconsider. We are MD residents so there are not a lot of options which is why I was really worried about my preconceived notions for a Towson. For S19, he wouldn’t have gotten into UMD, UMBC IME is even more of a commuter school, Frostburg is too remote, St. Mary’s is too small. I really liked Salisbury, another pleasant surprise, even tho it’s location is kinda eh, the size is good, lots of recent improvements, etc. it was important for us to have an in state option as a financial backup if other options didn’t pan out which is why I was worried that if he didn’t like Towson, it could be a problem. In the end it didn’t matter as he is going out of state for a price similar to in-state tuition, but if we hadn’t had a good tour the first time, I probably would’ve given it a second chance. It’s one of the downsides of living in a small state when you are looking at colleges!
Anyway, good luck finding some schools that your D likes-fortunately you still have plenty of time to add some if needed.