<p>Usually, there will be an AP credit chart somewhere on the school’s (or major’s) web site indicating what AP scores can count in place of what courses. Note that “passing” scores of 3 are not allowed or recommended for skipping courses at many colleges.</p>
<p>If a student needs to take additional courses for which calculus is a prerequisite, he may want to look for old calculus final exams of the college he attends to see if he knows the material in the courses he is allowed to skip. However, some computer science majors (mainly those not in engineering divisions) do not require advanced math that depends heavily on calculus (they typically do require discrete math and linear algebra), so if he attends a school with such a computer science major, he may want to just take the allowed AP credit if it fulfills the entire calculus requirement.</p>
<p>I would guess that most high schools would not have sufficient enrollment in MultiVariable Calc or Linear Algebra to justify a teacher to offer it. (Not to mention finding a HS teacher that can teach those courses.) The highest course offered – Calc BC – probably makes the most economic sense to the district (and taxpayers).</p>
<p>Calculus is not needed for a “selective college”. Highly selective, yes, engineering programs- most, yes. Before parents get all stressed and overthink this, learn where each target college actually falls on the spectrum.</p>
<p>Most engineering majors do not require high school calculus on frosh entry, although they do expect that the student is ready for calculus. The recommended eight semester plan typically starts with calculus 1 in the first semester of frosh year. A student who is ready to start in a more advanced math course gets some advantages in terms of an extra elective or two and the ability to take other courses for which calculus is a prerequisite earlier than in the normal plan, but that is not required.</p>
<p>Schools like Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and WUStL are outliers in this respect.</p>
<p>“It’s interesting that your school system would offer a magnet school but not middle school algebra”.</p>
<p>Most of the district ms did offer Algebra in ms. Ours was unique and had a progression scheme (group of students and core teachers stay together 3 years. That offered many advantages but made it tough to track students. No honors either. There was an option to take Algebra (and even Geometry) at the hs. But logistics were crazy - hs had a block system, compressed 1 semester courses 90 minute classes every day. It did not mesh well with ms schedule, even for those that had a way to handle the transportation. </p>
<p>For kid1, there was only 1 trimester of Algebra 1 enrichment class. That was not enough for her. For kid2 I joined other parents to clamor for more. He got one semester of rigorous algebra class. It was plenty for him. My kids do love math - I once came home to find them helping the babysitter with her math homework. </p>
<p>With kid2 I did get freaked out at the first sophomore year teacher conference. The school was in a math sequence transition, so he had opted to take Algebra2 in parallel with precalc to allow 2 yrs for IB HL Math. The precalc teacher said she was surprised he had not completed Algebra2 - it was prereq for her class. But she laughed and said he was doing fine, no worries. Phew. I would definitely NOT recommend that to others.</p>
<p>I got a 3 in BC Calculus and I’m moving on to Calc III after Discrete Math and Linear Algebra this semester (which I’m doing fine in). I do, however, sit in on Calc II from time to time. I don’t know that there’s any recommendable hard-and-fast rule about whether to repeat Calc, but at the very least you shouldn’t do Calc I <em>and</em> II if you get at least a 3 on BC, since II encases all of I as well as building on it.</p>
<p>D’s college encourages kids to take highest level calc for which they qualify based on AP scores, as their data is consistent with the article in post 38. This is a small, engineering school so all kids are studying engineering, math or similar. D is now in her second year, and she and her friends seemed to do well following the guidance to go straight into Calc 3.</p>
<p>My S did not take calculus in HS and boy did he regret it. When he took it in college (required for his major) at a pretty rigorous college he said he was only one of three kids (in a class of around 35) who didn’t have it in HS. The teacher taught quickly, pretty much assuming that everyone had the basics under their belt already. He found himself in trouble quickly even with going to the math center regularly. He felt he couldn’t compete with students who knew the material already and the time he had to spend to try to keep up in calculus was hurting his performance in the other four classes he had. He eventually (as well as the other two who didn’t have it already) dropped the class. He retook calculus over the summer at a local (easier) college where not everyone had the class already and he could put all his focus on the subject. Believe me, my younger D took calculus in HS (although she opted not to bother taking the AP test).</p>
<p>A few years ago, we had a math professor who used to regularly post on cc.</p>
<p>It was his/her strong recommendation that students take Calc in HS if they could. Even with an average teacher, a class of ~30 is much more conducive to learning the concepts than a large lecture hall in college.</p>
<p>That happened to me. I took Calculus in HS and got an A. I took the entry test at my school and if you can’t answer Calculus II questions they stick you back into Calculus I. I don’t get it. It seems that the only way to come in and not take Calculus again is to score high on an AP Calculus test</p>
<p>Those that have no need to take anything more advanced than calculus 1, but are allowed by their colleges to use their AP scores for calculus 1 do not need to take any math at all. (Those with AP scores that are too low would be repeating, but they did not learn calculus well enough the first time.)</p>
<p>The grade-grubbing pre-meds repeating their 5 scores for what they think will be an “easy A” grade would choose to take calculus 1 in the spring, with weaker-in-math students in the grading curve (fewer math/physics/engineering majors, and more students who were weak enough at math to have needed to take remedial precalculus in the fall).</p>
<p>If you got an A in high school calculus but a low score on the AP calculus test, wouldn’t that be a sign that your high school calculus course is not up to the AP standards or the standards of colleges which accept high enough AP calculus scores?</p>
<p>This topic comes up every so often. I posted this before but will post it again. My son is an engineering major and took AB and BC in HS. He chose to start with Calc 2 in college even though his test score was high enough to test out. I asked him if he knew the math he was taking in Calc 2, did it just feel like review. </p>
<p>He said he knew the math but found the practice sets this time to be harder than the ones he did in HS. I imagine it really depends on the kid, how good their class was in HS (his was very good) and what else they have on the schedule for the semester.</p>
<p>S took AP Calc AB as a high sch. junior. Made a B. Got a 4 on the exam.
Took AP Stats senior year. Made an A or B and 4 on the exam and was able to use it for his college Stats requirement</p>
<p>His college major required Calc. I and II for engineering. Even though he placed out of Calc.1 , he decided to retake since he hadn’t seen it since junior yr. Got a foreign instructor. Couldn’t understand a thing. Failed the first quizzes and test. Advisor said to drop it since he already had AP credit. S forged ahead and took Calc.2 in the spring sem so as not to get behind. Made a B. Math requirements completed.</p>
<p>Dartmouth does not have calculus as a GE requirement. It does have a GE requirement that can be satisfied with calculus, but which can also be satisfied with other courses which may be more useful to a student who has no need for calculus for his/her major (Math 5 (Exploring Mathematics), Math 6 (Intro to Finite Mathematics) or Math 10 (Introductory Statistics)).</p>
<p>This may have more to do with how grading is done in high school versus college. High schools often grade on a scale where 70% = C, 80% = B, 90% = A, so assignments and tests need to have 70% easy problems for C students to pass, so much of them are busy work for B and A students, while there are few harder problems to challenge the B and A students.</p>
<p>In contrast, a college test may have three problems, an easy one for the C students, a harder one for the B students, and an even harder one for the A students. But “grading on a curve” means that a student who gets a 67% may get a B, not an D like in high school.</p>
<p>Also, what is expected of C students in college may be more than for C students in high school, so the C student problems in college may be harder than the C student problems in high school.</p>
<p>But then those same grade-gubbers would end up in calc2 the following spring, with a curve set by all the super smart freshmen who got 4s and 5s on their APs and skipped out of calc1.</p>
<p>No need. Only one (or two?) med schools require Calc 2. Heck, most don’t even require Calc 1; its just recommended as part of a year of “college math.” Thus, repeating Calc 1 and Stats is the preferred route to grade-grubbing. :D</p>
<p>btw: while it may be fun to poke at 'em, pre-health wannabes can represent a fifth to a quarter of the matriculating Frosh at many colleges – higher at the premed factories such as Hopkins. Thus, a big chunk of Frosh who are looking at Calc 1, are only considering Calc 1, with no intention of going further.</p>
<p>You mean the following fall after taking calculus 1 in the spring, right?</p>
<p>As noted above, many pre-meds do not need more than calculus 1. If they do need calculus 2 for some reason, they could wait until the following spring, which probably has weaker students than calculus 2 in the fall, for maximum grade-grubbing.</p>
<p>Of course, the grade-grubbers might also choose to take easier “calculus for business, social studies, and life sciences” courses instead of the normal calculus courses that math and engineering majors may take.</p>
<p>But another thing to note is that a frosh pre-med whose major does not require more advanced math should be able to defer any math courses until later (i.e. does not need commit to “wasting” the AP calculus credit immediately). S/he can always take any needed math later (in the spring for maximum grade-grubbing for calculus 1 or 2) if s/he is still doing pre-med after taking a few chemistry and/or biology courses. But if s/he drops pre-med, than s/he would not need to use any schedule space for an unneeded math course.</p>