<p>Ok so I have a bit of a dilemma. I plan on being an investment banker out of college and realize that I need to go to a top-notch school. I am currently an african-american sophomore in highschool with a 4.0 uw and a 4.16 w. I just took the PSAT and expect to do well because I am very good at standardized testing. The thing I'm worried about in the college admissions is that I am only in Geometry (because I didn't have my head on strait in middle school) and will be on track to take Pre-Calc my senior year. How will this affect my chances on getting into a top school? What can I do about this? Should I load up on electives the rest of the year and then double up on math next year? Any help would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Hi KalebGetsMoney,</p>
<p>I was in your situation before. I was worried of not being in an advance mathematics class, so I worked hard in my current math class. Afterwards, I request for the professor to sign off or allow me to move up to a higher class than the expected class I was suppose to take (when choosing classes for the next term). If you can do well and prove yourself by earning a high grade in geometry, is there a chance you will be allowed to move up to an advance class? Just thought this could be a suggestion. Well, competitive universities like to see AP/IB courses in the transcript. Are you taking any of these?</p>
<p>SuperSenior,</p>
<p>Thank you for showing me a possible solution, however I would feel concerned about the material that I would be missing; wouldn’t that hurt my SAT/ACT scores? And I am currently in one AP class and two honors classes but I am not aware of any “IB” courses at my school, is IB just another name for AP?</p>
<p>Perhaps you could take math at a community college during the summer. Talk to your guidance counselor at your high school. It may be that if you took college algebra next summer, you could take precalc as a junior, or if you took precalc the summer before senior year, you could take calculus as a senior.</p>
<p>If you’re choosing between those plans, I’d recommend taking college algebra next summer and then taking precalc as a junior.</p>
<p>Sikorsky,</p>
<p>I agree with you that it would be better to take algebra 2 next summer instead of my junior summer. In a perfect world, should I take Calc AB over my junior summer before I take Calc BC?</p>
<p>For me, I had to catch up on the materials that I didn’t learn (which took a lot of my summer away). After reading Sikorsky’s response, I agree that perhaps taking it for the summer may help advance you. I know some of my friends that jump to a higher math level would self-study the course that they missed (such as trig). If independent studying is okay with you, then I guess going to a more advance math level wouldn’t be a bad option.</p>
<p>IB is: “The IB Diploma Programme is a two-year curriculum for high school students. Juniors and seniors take six courses in various subjects, providing them with credit at some colleges and universities.” If I remember correctly, I think IB has more workload than AP classes, and very competitive. You can look for more details about this by Google, or ask your high school counselor.</p>
<p>You don’t need to take AB before BC. I did (because I thought BC would be SOOOOOOO hard), and at midterms in January the BC class was 3 days ahead of us in material… So it goes a bit faster, and you learn more, but it’s not much harder.</p>