D is a rising junior, completed Pre-Calc Hons with A in sophomore year,
Adv Algebra II Hons with A in freshman year and Geometry Hons with A before that.
She wants to take AP Calc BC in junior year, then Stat or Multi-variate in senior year.
The Math Supervisor has not allowed it; and has assigned AP Calc AB instead;
when asked why, said her PSAT score was the factor.
We think the PSAT score (which was not best, but not terrible either) should not be the single deciding factor,
she always got A’s in all her math classes from elementary school, and is a straight A student overall.
Are students with similar background not allowed to take AP Calc BC after Pre-Calc Hons in your school?
Administration should not be able to restrict a student from picking their classes. My school definitely does not. Of course, when I wanted to take 5 APs the principal called me in for a little meeting, but that was all he could do about it.
Talk to administration. Why would anybody base scheduling on a test taken almost over a year ago. In addition, Calc BC is basically Calc AB with L’Hopital’s Rule, Series, and some other weird things.
In my school, it’s school policy to take Calc AB before Calc BC. IMHO, your daughter does not need to rush into calc BC when she can just take it senior year. She won’t be behind or anything. Don’t worry about it.
At my school, students who did well in honors pre-calculus went on to take Calc BC. I was not extremely good at honors pre-calc and moved onto BC calc anyway, and did ok in the class. I think if someone is able to get A’s in all advanced math classes leading up to honors pre-calc, they should be fine in Calc BC. I also think it’s odd that the math supervisor is taking PSAT scores into account when scheduling classes, my school definitely did not do that.
@NewJersey12: Are you able to have a parent advocate for you? Can you go into your district’s written policies, as well as the math department’s published policies, to see if there is an established rule for determining your eligibility (i.e., excluding you) based on a 10th grade PSAT?
Even with established guidelines being in place (if they are), a parent could still advocate for you, but you’d want to know before hand so that you could formulate an argument in favor of admitting you to the course before you are summarily dismissed by a handwritten copy of the guidelines.
Students who have successfully taken the sequence of courses you have listed have no problem taking AP Calc BC, as it is merely an accelerated course, likely meeting the learning styles and capacities of students at your level.
I think the grade in precalc would be a much better predictor of success in BC calc than a PSAT score. The grade reflects a year’s work and assessments similar in style to what BC would use. The PSAT is a trial of how fast you can do relatively easy problems with 100 percent accuracy. Also, your daughter’s PSAT score is from sophomore year, I imagine that most students at your school going into BC calc are rising seniors and so this administrator is comparing her sophomore score with other students’ junior scores. Scores generally do rise a bit with experience and maturity on these timed tests. That said, schools are free to enforce whatever nonsensical rules they like. I would take this up the administrative ladder because it makes no sense but ultimately there may be nothing you can do. Our school requires students to take AB prior to BC no matter their grades or scores.
I wouldn’t rush it. A few years ago, S (who was advanced in math, great/grades and scores)–in the same position as your kid (taking precalc as a soph), took Calc BC as a junior. It moves very fast/covers a lot of material. Second semster it got hard, and he did not do well on the test. My other son took it as a senior (he had a perfect PSAT math score). Wasn’t easy for him, either.
Now, my first son didn’t really know how to get help with the class (communication issues), and my second son is sort of a slacker…But from their experience, I would advise students not to be overly eager to push ahead into BC. Especially if they have a bunch of other AP classes at he same time. She might master the material better in AB since there is less of it/slower pace.
@mathyone ,My son had to take AB prior to BC at his school as well. I don’t think there was any way around it. Each school will have it’s own rules and policies about this kind of thing. IIRC, he took BC and AP Statistics in the same year. Is something like that an option in terms of your daughter’s schedule?
I think it makes little sense to take AB before BC since much of the BC class is AB material so it would be repetitive. I would escalate this on behalf of your child. D took honors pre-calc as a sophomore and then BC calc as a junior. She got almost perfect grades both semesters (100 pt scale) and a 5 on the BC exam with perfect or near perfect scores on PSAT and SAT/2 math sections. Sophomore year PSAT score should not matter.
In schools like ours, AB then BC is set up to teach the material over 2 years. But in a school which offers students the opportunity to take BC without AB prior, those students who do take AB are going to sit through a lot of repetition of material, because the BC class must cover all of the AB material. Doesn’t make sense to me.
My own school placed the stronger students into BC and the weaker ones into AB following precalc. I don’t recall anyone complaining about their placement. I took BC after precalc, as a sophomore, and didn’t have any trouble with it. You might look into how the AP scores come out at your school. My school was a strong public school with a very good record on calc AP scores. That said, my older kid who was made to take AB following precalc, thought it was ok to be on that slower pace even though I felt she could have handled BC. She also took AP stats at the same time. My kids’ school has 8 classes, some kids have no study halls and many are taking 5 or so APs, and that’s part of the reason why they pace the math slower. So I think it all depends on the student and the situation.
Just be aware that every school is different on how they structure its curriculum. AP Calculus is a prime example. Many schools cover the AB topics in a year-long course, followed by BC topics in the succeeding year. Others cover all the topics in a single year. My own HS was offered it both ways.
Any way, back to the OP’s question. Yes, you should certainly have a discussion with the math department head, and escalate if needed. I personally think that pre-calc grades should be the determining factor, but the school might feel differently. Having said that, many/most schools have limited sections and/or limited enrollment in AP courses, and some criteria is used to select students if enrollment exceeds capacity. If capacity is “X” and the student ranks “X+1” based upon the criteria, there should be no expectation that s/he gets into the class no matter how high one goes up the chain of command.
Expanding on my point, if she gets A’s but needs to study several hours ever day to do so, it might not be a good idea for her to jump into BC because it would stretch the amount of time she’d need to study for it to unreasonable proportions. On the other hand, if she can get these A’s with only a respectable amount of preparation (or if she just over-studies and gets like 98s), she might be able to take in BC too if the rest of her schedule isn’t too crazy.
Granted, calculus is a different beast from honors pre-calc, as you might remember, so it’s difficult to know for sure.
My school skipped students who did well in pre-calc into BC calculus, but this was in the IB program where a lot of students were incredibly good at math and/or crazy.
If the student is planning to take AP Physics C, and is thinking that Calculus BC and Physics C together in senior year is more undesirable than jumping into Calculus BC in junior that could be a valid concern too.
Another thing I would like to point out is that, because kids at my school have to take AB before BC, it allows them the chance to get their feet wet in calculus, if you know what I mean. So many kids at my school drop out of calculus after AB because of a severe dislike of it. They can then choose not to take BC. I feel that when students jump straight into BC, they are missing out on that “intro” year where they can decide if they actually like the subject, rather than being thrust into the harder math course where they may be scrambling to learn all of the information. Calculus is very different from other types of math, even some people I knew who loved math dropped it. I feel like taking AB before BC would be a good choice, especially when your daughter will have a year afterwards to either take BC, or another math class if she decides she doesn’t take to calculus.
If 100 sophomores got A on Pre-Calc, but the school has room for 50 of them to move on to Calculus BC (probably because it thinks only half of them are good enough to skip AB) than using PSAT score to differentiating them makes sense. After all, calculus uses a lot of skills that are tested on PSAT as tools.
I’ve seen a student with near perfect PSAT math but not-so-outstanding performance in coursework take calc. There was significant struggle. I do not believe the PSAT is a better indicator of calc success.