<p>I suppose this is something of a dreaded "how is it going to look to college admissions"- type question, but we're struggling with this math issue (as some of you have seen from a previous thread I started). Based on comments from here and my own thinking through what would be "best" to do if reasonable to do it, I'm going to encourage my daughter ( current HS Junior) to take the 4th year of math next year, which for her would be PreCalc. She goes to an IB high school program, and the PreCalc classes are primarily filled with IB freshman (!!!) and sophomores, along with a smattering of non-IB (and a rare IB) juniors and seniors. The PreCalc classes at her HS are notoriously difficult (not really sure why, but it's a heavy math/science program and the math, and I think the community college classes in PreCalc would actually be easier. She's not a good math student, has worked very hard for all her B's in math (Geo, Alg 2, and IB Math 1 which is an integrated math class that includes stats, logic, a bit of trig, precalc, and calc) and has reported to me that her interim grade report in IB Math 1 is going to be a low C. She claims she can get it up to a B by the final grade, and that she had a couple of failing grades on recent tests. (Her teacher does not give partial credit on tests. The class of 36 has 2 A's, 3 B's, and the rest C's, D's.) OK, so my question is whether it would look "strange" for her to take a course that is offered at her high school, but that she is taking at a CC instead. Thanks!</p>
<p>What is the counseling situation at your school, and refresh our memory, what degree of selectivity college is she considering?</p>
<p>The easy/hard answer is don't worry about how "it will look" to the schools, determine which is the class that will help her learn the most, and be the most successful. If she will learn more in the high school class, then grade go hang. If the college class covers topics she has not mastered or even covered, and she has a better shot at a high grade, great. Of course, the decision is not as easy as all that!</p>
<p>Talk to the counseling office. If you have good counseling, they should be able to paint her math situation in the best possible light, i.e. "This student felt 4 full years of math was important to her overall education, and chose to take a 4th year despite her primary interests in humanities" Add that to a good description of the school as being math and science oriented, and her being a bit of "diversity" in this area, and I think colleges will get the picture.</p>
<p>The counseling office might also be able to say something the effect of Pre-Cal is a high math track freshman class at our school, but is not an appropriate choice for a senior, or cannot be scheduled for a senior, so the appropriate choice for this student was a CC class.</p>