My counselor called me out to program my senior year classes already. I am in Algebra 2, currently. I have the opportunity to decide to go to Quantitive Statistics (my local college brings a professor to our high school and somewhat beneficial) and I want to study Political Science or Psychology or move to the sequence in Mathematics which is Pre-Calculus.
I usually get B’s in Math, so should I stick to Pre-Calculus or take that course that my counselor recommended me to do?
I kind of want to pass next year too, so am I setting myself up for failure or…
Does your planned major require calculus? For example, my mom didn’t take a full year of calculus in high school and none in college and she’s a sociology professor. If you’re going into a “mathy” field, take precalc; if not, take quantitative statistics. --Also some colleges require precalc for admission into the school, even if it’s not required for your major, so that might be worth checking out too.
What colleges are you thinking of?
All colleges will require some form of precalculus, either before or after you start college though, so you might as well bite the bullet now.
Most colleges in the Fiske Guide or Princeton Review’s Best Colleges (roughly 400) would expect precalculus.
If you think of attending a lower ranked 4-year school or a community college, you could take statistics, but you’d have to take precalculus in college, and why pay college rates for a high school class?
I’m gonna major in Political Science or Psychology. It’s something called SLAM (Math 109) and the teacher told me that it’s beneficial and I’m gonna miss two absences and such. She told me that Pre-Calculus is just another year of math and I won’t get anything out of it. But she’s obviously saying that just to join, she’s obviously gonna be in favor of Math 109 since she’s the teacher.
UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, Stanford, San Fran State, etc are the colleges I’m considering.
UCLA and UC Berkeley (UC 's in general) will definitely expect pre-calculus. Will that be your junior or senior year? You could always take stats senior year.
One of my kids did algebra 2 junior year followed by college level stats. It worked out great. As an art major she doesn’t need to take much math at her liberal arts school and the stats class transferred. Many colleges (but not Stanford!) are fine with four years of any math, doesn’t need to be calculus-track.
But you need to make sure that works for the schools on your list.
I talked to my advisor and the Stats class exempts you from the entrance exam… but for the Cal States not UC’s nor Privates but if you pass it’s transferrable. So I ended going with Pre-Calculus. Thanks!