Hello, I am currently an 8th grader in Geometry Honors and I am trying to plan out my future high school classes. I’m thinking of doing Algebra II Honors with FLVS over the summer so that I could follow this path:
Freshman - Precalculus Honors
Sophomore - AP Calculus AB
Junior - AP Calculus BC + AP Statistics
Senior - Dual Enrollment: Differential Equations / Linear Algebra
I would like to know how difficult taking Algebra II online would be. I feel that math has always been a strong point for me but I’m not sure how well I would do without a teacher and having to self-study the material. Also, I would like to know if it is even worth it. So would taking Differential Equations and Linear Algebra make my college application stronger? Thanks.
My D has studied a few math topics online - one a core class to accelerate and several non-core topics (number theory, discrete math). With a strong math talent, she found the ability to progress at her own pace to be a benefit. A couple courses were through AoPS, so the additional rigor was very beneficial. She went through the normal course quite quickly. I’m not familiar with FLVS.
Coursework beyond Calc BC would be of some benefit, but I wouldn’t do it at the cost of taking the expected core courses and showing strength in other areas. I.e. doubling up math Junior year at the cost of stopping a language at two or, to a lesser extent, three years might be a poor trade-off. I’d actually suggest skipping AP Stats instead.
Is there any way to go straight to BC or is AB a prereq at your school?
My junior year, my school discontinued AB, so I did BC as an independent study and excelled in DiffEq this year. I feel that taking only BC is better than trying to do Algebra II online, since Alg2 is sooo helpful in upper-level math (SAT, ACT, Subject Tests, even Diffeq!).
In my opinion alg 2 is an important and core class and I would not want to cram that into a summer. A 6 month course reduced to 3 months? I have been told that students do not need to take Calc AB before BC, that BC incorporates everything just at a faster pace. Find out if that is true in your school, if it is you can still do what you want without taking summer classes. Additionally, are you sure your school will give you credit and placement for summer math classes?
Doing it to look good on a college application is not a great strategy. Most of us don’t really know what will make a college accept a student so guessing about things like this isn’t a plus.
Algebra 2 is a foundation for everything else…you need to be very solid in it. And yes, it makes up the bulk of SAT math.
Unless you’re so gifted that you’re utterly bored with math class and understand everything intuitively yourself, don’t skim over the foundation; you’ll pay for that later. Most schools offer some elective space somewhere…if you love math that much, then maybe you can double up in math Junior or senior year (but don’t skip any core courses, and keep up with foreign language to level 4/AP or level 3 at bare minimum!)
I agree that Algebra 2 is a very important class to cram in a couple of months. Does the HS have Honors Algebra 2 as an alternative? We have also been told that you can skip Calc AB and go into Calc BC (at our HS- only after testing and recommendation from Alg2 teacher). Is the online class through the HS that you will be attending? If you decide to take it over the summer you want to make sure that it will show on your transcripts. Many HS will only add it to your HS transcripts if the class is taken through their summer program or if they pre-approve it. I would try to meet with a college counselor at the HS that you will be attending and run it by them.
My son tested out of Algebra 2. Mid year 8th grade he started working with a HS student who tutored him, she was supervised by a math teacher at another district HS so they used the GT Algebra 2 curriculum. To move up to GT Pre Calc, he had to score above an 85 on GT midterm and final. He took the mid term at the end of the year and passed.
During the summer he worked with the teacher and learned a lot more. She went back and filled in some pieces that were missed over the summer. He also supplemented with Khan Academy and AOPs work. He started GT Pre Calc this year.
He had been complaining about the pace of math since kindergarten and all of MS was trying to move to 3 years ahead. Our HS had just added Linear Algebra and he watched videos on linear algebra and it’s different uses for fun. Skipping Cal A/B is not an option in our school system.
With all that said, his identical twin did not want to accelerate and I had spent several years discouraging this son to accelerate 3 years. The only on-line course I would have considered was AOPs and even though that is excellent is does not align with school system.
I would not accelerate if the reason is you think it will help on college applications. Everyone hits a hard point in math at sometime and foundation is very important.
Where does trigonometry fit into all of this? Trig is a major basis for calculus.
“Algebra 2 is a foundation for everything else…you need to be very solid in it.”
This is very much my opinion also. The only students who would even conceive of trying to push ahead so quickly in math are students who are very strong at math. These are students who are very likely to major in something related to STEM. For the “TEM” part of STEM, and also for physics, Algebra 2 is a major basis for a huge amount of work and a huge number of courses that you are going to take in the future. You want to make sure that you know Algebra 2 very, very well before you jump ahead into more advanced math.
I don’t think that there is any reason to try to jump ahead quite this quickly.
By the way, I was a math major at a highly ranked university, and did use math for some of the stuff that I did in my career.