Please understand that an AP Lite like AP Stats is unlikely to be considered sufficient “Math” for your talented son - this is a class for students who enjoy rigorous classes but can’t hack math, or want an extra math classin addition to calculus. It’s not rigorous and often doesn’t carry college credit because it’s so much lighter than statistics as taught in college, even for the business majors (and bears no resemblance to what math majors will take).
Note that one unpleasant online experience (could be a 13 year old’s maturity, could be the provider) does not mean all classes are going to be bad for him. He may want to check out some EdX or Coursera offerings (it’s free so no big loss if it doesn’t work out).
But there’s plenty of time to think about those options.
Do you think he’d be ready to take a 1-hour precalc-based test in November? At worst he could retake it later and it wouldn’t impact him negatively since colleges typically consider that the student can only have gotten better since freshman/sophomore year.
Hmm, I might have him take a look at a Math II sample test and see how well he already knows the material. I doubt he’d regress much between November and May though - I assume the Calc BC stuff builds upon and references the earlier math - correct?
Sorry, have to interject that stats is a perfect legit class. Heck, my son is a data scientist now, and has always adored statistics of all kinds. I always figured he’d be a sports stastician, to be honest. He took an online 8 week stats course at the local CC summer after 8th grade, and then took the AP stats test in 9th with no prep. He got a 3. He then watched some Thinkwell videos on AP stats in his sophomore year and retook and got a 5. Maybe stats wasn’t good for anything that colleges care about, but he liked it a lot, so why not?
And BTW, upthread, someone said the curve for Math II was more harsh than Math I. I think they got it backwards. Curve for Math II is more generous. Even my math disabled middle son, after some studying, got a 730 on the Math II exam. It’s definitely a pretty easy test for math loving kids.
Well, sure, but why not take a more useful stats course, like one that actually uses calculus since this kid has already completed BC? For what it’s worth, the AP Stats course in our high school, which is taught by the best math teacher in the school, completes the AP curriculum in about November. He spends the rest of the year teaching real stats. (And yes the kids do very well on the AP test.)
" So there will likely be little to nothing in any of their classes oriented towards the SAT Subject Tests (then again, perhaps this is the norm even in hyper-focused elite east coast schools?)."
From above-average but hardly “hyper-focused elite school”, I would say there is no focus on SAT subject tests or prep for them at our school. In fact, there was one test my daughter really should have taken, but she felt poorly prepared for it. One of my daughter’s friends took the bio test in 9th grade and that surprised me because it wasn’t something I was even thinking about at that time, with my oldest only in 9th grade, and it certainly wasn’t anything the teacher or school mentioned, although it does make sense for 9th graders who don’t plan to take more bio and want a science SAT2 to take that exam in 9th grade. Actually, there was never any communication or guidance from our school about these tests. Probably only 15-20 kids from our large school would even apply to a college which requires them.
“How much test prep for SAT subject tests is normal for ambitious kids?” My daughter who took the SAT2 in 10th grade after BC spent about a month reviewing the material, which she had learned in middle school. This may have been overkill, but it was her first standardized test and I didn’t want her to have a bad experience because she couldn’t remember the geometry or something. Her prep for the other two SAT2 tests she took was mostly to do the one practice test in the College board’s SAT2 prep book. Those tests were taken in May or June at the end of taking the relevant AP class so there wasn’t much to study. Your 9th grader could take the Math level 2 test in June, which should give him some down time to review for it after the BC AP, or anytime this year really if he isn’t too busy to look over the material. If you feel he would benefit from more test-taking maturity, he could certainly take it next year, and do some review over the summer. He will be glad to have it out of the way once he has more tests to worry about.
For the other tests, look at the requirements of the programs they may to apply to, and plan on taking them after an AP class if possible. You need to plan this carefully because there aren’t that many testing dates to work with, especially if there are any conflicts with ECs. To avoid fatigue, I wouldn’t schedule more than 2 tests in the same session.
Just wanted to add, in case you were wondering, the subject tests my daughter was able to score 800s with only a few hours of specific prep for the SAT2s after taking the AP classes were chem and US history. So I assume those classes are pretty well aligned to those tests. I also recall that you can miss quite a few questions on the US history test, perhaps 6, and still get an 800. The curve on math2 is not nearly so generous I believe.
My older son went through the examples in the college board test prep book for physics since it had been a couple of years since he’d seen the material. He didn’t study at all for the math and US History. He was taking APUSH at the time and the class was reviewing for both the AP and Regents. I know one of the math teacher taught the kids matrixes which wasn’t part of the curriculum but is in the Math 2 test, and the biology teacher told the kids that in his experience his students did better doing the E option of the bio test compared to the M option. (My son took both and got exactly the same score.) Both my kids took the 3 SAT subject tests in one sitting. It’s much less grueling than the regular SAT.
I would not assume that all the math is being used in calculus. Just have him take a practice test and see what he may need to review. Actually, I recall now that my daughter took the math2 exam during the year as she was taking BC, not at the end of BC, but it doesn’t really matter–they aren’t testing calculus on the SAT2 exam. She had taken geometry 4 years prior and yes, she did need to review the material.
My daughter took AP stats in 9th grade and she really enjoyed it. Yes, it would be better if it were more rigorous.
Telling kids they need to take college level math classes in high school is easy to say but not always so easy to do. My daughter pieced together her post-AP math program and it was inconvenient, expensive and timeconsuming during her senior year when she sorely needed to be using that time on classes and college apps, not spending it driving across town. It also caused her to miss out on some high school ECs and classes she wanted. Because the courses she was able to access didn’t align very well with her college sequence, she ended up having to repeat much of it anyhow. If your son is more interested in science than math and has useful science classes to take in high school, I would dissent from the advice you’re getting here. I don’t see why it’s better for a kid whose main interest is science, not math, to spend his time commuting to a cc or something to take a less rigorous version of the math he would get at a top college, instead of taking more science classes.
In terms of how much preparation is needed for SAT subject tests, when I was in high school I took what were then called the Achievement tests with no preparation other than the high school (non-AP) courses. I did fine in them, including 800 on math level 2 and in the 700s in two others. The high school was not a special elite one; about a third of graduates then went on to four year colleges and universities (mostly state universities), and many more went to the local community college.
So I would suggest that perhaps some test familiarization and checking the topics to see if the student is missing anything may be useful, but large amounts of cramming probably is not, if the student learned the material in the high school courses well and did not forget it the day after the final exam.
I did the same thing you did, @ucbalumnus, but times have changed.
The teachers of some of my kids’ high school courses openly told students that some topics included on the Subject Test would not be covered in the course because the course had to align with state standards – and those standards were not the same as the expectations of the Subject Tests.
State authorities who set curriculum standards don’t seem to care about the needs of the small proportion of students who take Subject Tests.
I would have each child take one or two SAT Subject tests before the end of sophomore year. If your kids are looking at top 20 schools, most of these schools still require them. My daughter took 3 in the spring of sophomore year so she is now done, while my son (now a senior) didn’t do them in his sophomore year due to GCSEs and now has to do them next month while he is also very busy working on his essays and college apps. Londondad
@MWDadof3 - I believe you might be overthinking this, at least for your 9th grader. I agree with a lot of @mathmom 's posts. I have two kids with similar profiles who’ve gone through the process already, and I think the following advice is pretty much on target -
He should probably take at least 2 subject tests; probably Math II and a science (chem or physics are often preferred for engineers). Most very selective schools explicitly require this for prospective STEM types, and even those that only “recommend” subject tests actually expect to see them unless a student comes from an underprivileged background, is a recruited athlete, etc.
Have him take the Math II test sometime this year since he’s already taken pre-Calc so he can get it out of the way. I’m sure he’s a very strong math student if he’s taking Calc BC as a 9th grader. He should aim for an 800, which should definitely be obtainable for him and will be almost expected by schools like MIT and CalTech … fortunately, the curve is relatively forgiving. Read some of the advice in the TestPrep forum - I’d get a copy of the Barrons Math II book for practice. Barrons will be harder than the actual test but it will prepare him well.
Have him take a science subject test in May or June of the year that he takes the corresponding AP class (although technically it isn’t necessary for a student to take the AP course before taking the subject test, many kids do this - it helps a lot and is “free” prep). He’ll have to do this at the end of sophomore or junior year. I think the AP Chem class lines up well with the subject test. The AP Physics C class has more depth but not enough breadth, so your son will have to supplement his physics knowledge with outside reading or from his physics class prior to AP Physics C if he goes this route. Again, read some of the advice in the TestPrep forum.
Never heard that CalTech requires the test be less than 2 years old … are you sure about this? I think the bureaucracy there might have foolishly had a problem using scores from tests taken as an 8th grader, but that isn’t the case with your son.
If he’s aiming for schools like MIT and CalTech, he should really try to take some additional math in 11th and 12th grade too. I’d hope he’d want to be learning additional math as well.
If you have a child who is a freshman and they are already in AP Calc BC, then chances are very good they will be applying to at least some colleges that require subject tests. The rule of thumb is to take subject tests in the same year you take the corresponding AP or IB courses. It is a good thing to take them before junior year so junior year is not so stressful. Also, you can’t take SAT and subject tests on the same test date. My D did not prepare very much for her subject tests and they turned out fine. You can wait until junior year but if you are taking the SAT and the ACT multiple times along with AP or IB tests, junior year can become very challenging
Caltech doesn’t say anything about a two year limit on any test.
That said, Caltech requires four years of high school math. I don’t know what happens if your child tops out at BC in ninth grade. Usually these kids are not taking advanced math classes to check off boxes (okay - done with Math!) - there will be students at Caltech who have taken Calc BC in ninth grade and chances are they continued their math education. I would say, your child would be at a great disadvantage if the admissions office saw that he stopped his math in 10th grade with AP Stats. The same can be said for MIT.
I think that depends on how he spends the time and whether his other options are good or not. If he says he’s interested in science and he spends the time productively taking science classes or doing science fair projects, I don’t see why a school would hold it against him that he chose to pursue his primary interests in more depth. Maybe I’m just biased because that’s what I did.
A good regular high school level course should be sufficient (although not all high schools’ courses (regular or AP) are good).
From what I understand, Caltech specifically wants students to have had calculus before entering, one of the very few schools that requires that. A student who has exhausted all available offerings (including calculus) before completing four years of math would likely be cut some slack here – but it would be advantageous for a student’s intellectual development to look into additional math courses (or math-based courses like calculus-based physics and statistics, or computer science beyond the beginner level) at local colleges or on-line courses (even if informal non-credit ones).
I have a child who is taking Biology in 8th grade. Should he take the SAT II Biology next June, or wait until junior year when he starts IB Biology HL? Is it a good idea to take the SAT subject test at the end of the first year of IB HL?
The students I know who took the bio subject test after 8th grade high school biology, all did much better after AP Bio. I assume that IB HL Bio also covers more.
Thanks @mathmom , that’s nice to know. I’m not surprised that AP Bio lines up well with the SAT II subject test since it’s a one year program. Unfortunately our high school only offers IB and IB Bio HL is a 2 year program. I’m concerned that if he takes it at the end of the first year, only half the topics will have been covered.
This is a nice thread. I’m glad the OP started it. With all the negativity going on in the news media these days especially when it comes to education it’s nice to know there are still kids who take school so seriously and are so academically advanced.
