Questions about rigor of courses

My D is a junior in high school, and trying to decide what classes to take next year. She has taken two AP’s this year, AP Language and AP Art History. Next year she will take four, AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Economics and AP Government. She will be completing Pre-Calc (honors) this year, and she will likely finish with a C. She has not done horribly in the class, but this class has been a huge struggle for her, and she has been getting tutored for the past two months, and with that help, she is getting by. Math is not her strong subject, she makes mostly A’s and some B’s in all of her other classes. She already has the 4 required math credits to graduate, but her pre-calc teacher told her that she really needs to take another math and probably science as well, her senior year.

My question is, if she takes a math class that is not AP Calc, which is the next step up, will it look bad? If she were to take Trig (I think they call it analysis of function at her school but I was told it is the same as trig). She could also take AP Stats, but some of her friends who have already taken it, who are very good students, said that it was a struggle for them. Most of her friends breezed through it, but there were some that it was a huge struggle for them, and I worry that would be the case with her. Would it be better for her to take a class that would not be a huge struggle for her, since she will be taking 4 AP classes next year, or would that look bad, that she didn’t take a more difficult class? She is not going into engineering or biology or one of the more difficult majors. Her pre-calc teacher said if they offered a college algebra class online (we have Florida Virtual School here where kids can take extra classes and get the same credit that they would if they took it in school) that maybe she should consider that. They do offer a class called advanced algebra with financial applications, and I think she could finish that class without a problem. So would it be better to do a class that she knew she could ace or struggle through AP Calculus or AP Stats? Or will it hurt her to take the easier class? She doesn’t need the credit, this will just be an additional math credit.

She takes the SAT at her school on April 15th, and I have no idea how she will do, but I guess that will help us decide which direction to go with the math.

She really wants to focus on the other classes that she will be taking next year, instead of spending the year getting tutored to pass a difficult math class. But she doesn’t want to hurt her chances of getting in either.

May I ask what major your D is going into? Judging from your quedtion, I am guessing it is English/History related.

  1. AP and honors courses don't matter. Yeah, you can save money on college tuition by getting cheaper credits in high school, but if your D's GPA is suffering in the process, it is not worth it. If you aren't getting at least a B in an AP class, you shouldn't be in it. You want the wrighting to bring you to the upper 90s and over 100. If you have a C, that weighting will only bring you to a upper 80s or 90 at the highest, thereby hurting your overall gpa. Your daughter is already taking 4 AP's. Most likely, a college will put a limit on the amount of AP credits they will take. So, 4 is enough, as she will have 4 exams to study for during the end of her senior year.
  2. Classes are a match between the student and the type of class. I was always an mid to upper 80s student in Math. I am in Pre-Calc now and have done better then ever, getting low to mid 90s. I have friends who have taken AP stat and done amazing, while they fail at Calc. My school has an alternative to AP Calc, which is College Calculus, a calculus class run through a local college. Maybe she can do something like that.

Lastly, don’t overload her. It’s her senior year. No need to give her that many honors/AP classes. Many seniors don’t even end up taking all the AP tests.

There’s no real point to doing Calc next year if she knows she is going to struggle. If she gets a D for a semester in that class, it can result in her either being rejected (depending on whether she applies for December or March decision dates), or if she’s accepted before she gets that grade, being rescinded from FSU.

If she is going into a major that won’t need Calc, there’s really no point in taking the class anyway. It would only do harm if she struggled.

Thank you for the advice. We will hopefully be able to convince her that she should not take Calc. Her pre-calc teacher thought it would be a good idea for her to take a college algebra class, which they don’t really have at the school, but they have “Advanced Algebra with Financial Applications”. I’m thinking that might be the one she should take. I’m pretty sure she can get a good grade in that class, she always did very well in alg 1 and alg 2.

She is in a criminal justice magnet program at her school, and she is thinking of majoring in criminology or possibly something that can lead to teaching, like history. She is also thinking that instead of taking 4 AP’s next year, that she might just do 3, and drop the AP psych.

I love this website. I learned so many things here three years ago when my oldest daughter was applying to colleges.

They don’t tell you but having 8 honors/ap classes is a requirement for being automatically invited to the honors program so just make sure she has enough.