Hi!
I’m currently a high school junior planning my senior classes. I feel pretty certain about all of my decisions, except for the match class options. If I plan on going into the humanities, and for sure not any math or science-based major, would it be more beneficial/ practical for me to enroll in AP Calculus or AP Probability and Statistics? I’ve spoken with my counselor and teachers who have all informed me that Calc would be the more challenging class but would count for math credits when transferred at the college level, whereas Prob & Stats would most likely just be counted as an elective credit. Although I do not want to go into math, I’ve always been strong in it and have heard that having four years of a math is definitely more competitive than having three. Is this true for Berkeley and most of the other UC schools?
Statistics is probably more generally useful than calculus. However:
a. If you need to go into a more statistics-heavy field (e.g. most social studies, particularly economics and psychology, as well as business), you may need calculus in order to prepare for more in-depth statistics.
b. If you are interested in philosophy among humanities majors, more rigorous math courses will be more helpful to train your thinking in preparation of logic in philosophy. In a high school context, calculus is typically more rigorous than statistics.
c. College admission readers doing holistic review may favor calculus over statistics when considering how rigorous your course selection is.