I’m a current freshman taking Pre-Calc and want to get into the North Carolina School of Science and Math. I have the opportunity to take AP calc next year. I currently have an A+ in pre-calc and it seems pretty easy to me. Should i skip to AP calc instead of taking Honors Calc?
Yeah, why not? It seems like you are able to handle Calc and seeing that you want to go to that school, taking higher level math classes might be good for you.
Talk to both your current math teacher and your high school guidance counselor. Nobody on this board will know the ins and outs of your HS better than they do.
In our school, the normal track is straight from pre-calc to AP calc – so I don’t see why not. It’s what all of the kids here do. We don’t have an “Honors” Calc – just AP Calc AB and AP Calc BC. Generally, if a student is easily getting an “A” in Honors Calc, why not go for the AP Calc BC?
@happy1 I talked to both of them and the principal. My teacher recommended it but my principal denied it. They see my request as damaging the system. They say that only rising seniors could skip honors calc. In my case however I could have my mom sign a waiver that doesn’t need approval from the principal.
In our HS you go from pre-calc right to AP Calc. But it seems to me you can stay with the system and still take BC Calc. junior year so I’m not sure if there is a great benefit to skipping… If you go against the principal and falter at all there may be no safety net for you. Guess it is a call for you and your parents to make.
In our school about 1/3 of students go straight from pre-calc to BC Calc and the other two thirds do AB Calc. We don’t have a regular calc. At least one of the pre-calc finishes the entire AB Calc curriculum in pre-calc, the other get through about half of it.
When I went to high school, students went from precalculus to AP calculus BC. At the time, it did not offer AB or a sub-AB calculus course.
If you are getting an A+ in precalculus, why would you not be ready for AP calculus BC next year?
@ucbalumnus thanks that’s what i’ve been telling my principal
My son’s school has a separate semester for A, B, and C - no honors Calc. They have a course in functions prior to Calc A.
All well and good, but that is not the case for the OP. In his/her school, except for rising seniors, the flow is pre-calc->Honors Calc->Calc AB. That is school policy. So the question is really what can s/he do to override school policy. Giving examples of other schools will not help the cause.
Calc sequence should give you no problems if you have a solid grasp of high school Algebra.
@skieurope I could override the policy, but the catch is that I can’t drop the class without penalty in the first days of school.
The concern would be since it’s done along a certain path at your school, perhaps they skip some things (or don’t go into as much depth) in PreCalc because they are expecting you will learn it in the next call before AP.
I’d say if you can over ride it, as long as the teachers think it’s doable (since they know the curriculum best) it should be fine. Is probably spend some time in the summer reviewing PreCalc stuff online to make sure my school covered everything.
That’s not unusual; most schools don’t let you drop AP classes once registered, or at least make it very difficult. As @mom2twogirls said, if your teachers think you can handle it, you probably can.
unlike science where taking honors bio chem physics and then an AP version of one of those senior year is a norm, with Math you woudl go from pre-calc right into AP calc.
I turned in my AP form. Thanks guys for helping my decision
Here are some on-line quizzes that you can try at the end of this semester to check your precalculus knowledge to see if you need to review anything before taking calculus:
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/rur/rurci3.cgi
http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html
https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam
thanks