There is no “skipping AB.” BC Calc includes AB. Remember, AB and BC were originally intended to be senior year courses, where the stronger math student took BC as the rough equivalent of Calc I and Calc II in college, and the weaker math student took AB as the rough equivalent of Calc I. The student would then continue in college with the next in the math sequence.
I’ve never heard of basing Calculus readiness on a PSAT score. Generally a student who has done well in math, will also do well in calculus, especially if math generally came easily to them. My oldest took Calc BC as a junior, got a 5 on the exam no problem. (I think he’d had an 80 on the math portion of the PSAT.) My youngest was not as accelerated and took BC as a senior. He’d had something like a 67 on the math PSAT and an even lower score the year before. He got a 4 on the exam, but at that point he knew he had more 5’s on exams than Tufts would give him credit for, so he didn’t study.
Our school does not do the BC only after AB routine. However all of the pre-calc teachers start teaching calculus before the end of the year. (Usually a month or two.)
Is there a typical path at your school? Mine was also one that required AB before BC.
“I wouldn’t rush it.”
I’m also wondering what the rush is? Do you think there is peer pressure or pressure from a teacher playing into things at all? The pressure to excel in high school for some kids seems to be increasing, at least it seems that way. It’s not the end of the world if she takes AB first. My kid took AB first because that’s what the normal progression was at his school. Then he took BC as a senior and did very well. Top scores in math, physics, etc. He took AP Statistics but not multivariable,etc. before getting to college. It didn’t matter and he did very well in engineering anyway. My younger kid didn’t even take calculus in high school, just didn’t want to. Even that did not prevent him from pursuing engineering in college and doing very well. He did take AP Statistics, AP Physics B in HS , but not calculus.Your daughter is already more advanced than most kids in math at the high school level. Even if she does not take BC as a junior, she should have no problem demonstrating to colleges that she has taken a very rigorous course load.
I think schools should have requirements for taking AP classes. Our hs didn’t, and people who weren’t prepared and who didn’t work hard were in AP classes, slowing them down for everyone. AP Psych, Art History, APUSH, all full of kids who thought they ‘sounded fun.’ The OP’s school has a requirement to score a certain number on the PSAT. I don’t think that’s a good basis, but I don’t run that school. They may also require that those jumping to Calc BC also have an A in the other math classes, but OP didn’t say that they did or didn’t, only that her child had As in previous math classes. Maybe all other juniors taking ‘BC’ did too, but they also had a high PSAT.
@skieurope: “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.”
Generally, there is a caveat to the capacity rule, whereby students on the bubble of meeting the criteria, and with specific classroom and/or department review and approval are excepted. This is common. A parent need only ask for such review.
Capacity notwithstanding, I have never heard of a student who works on what might be deemed the honors level to be expected to take AB instead of BC. BC is the track for such a student, with AB being something the student could opt into, seeking to slow the pace.
@twoinanddone I was very glad when my younger kid’s APUSH teacher suggested he drop back to honors early into the class. He probably had no business being in that class to begin with. He was very diligent in classes he cared about, like AP Physics, but with other classes, he just did not want to put in the effort, or do the homework required to do well. I think good teachers often have a good read on things, sometimes better than parents do.
@SculptorDad : “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.”
Your comment is not a stated concern of the OP, is it? As such, I would ask how you have come to surmise this may be something the OP and child seek to head off.
Further, as the courses are often taken together but certainly not required to be taken together by any means, why does that present itself as a concern to you?
@Waiting2exhale A couple of us have already said that their kids had to take AB before BC. It is not universal that you can skip over AB at some high schools . My kid had 780- 800, 5’s on everything math and physics related and still had to take AB calculus before he could take BC calculus . And we did not push it as he had other things he was interested in-varsity sports, hanging with friends,etc. It was not all about academics in high school.
@Waiting2exhale Please read carefully I didn’t surmise. I was merely speculating a possibility. I hope that it was an enough answer.
@SculptorDad: Okay, speculating, then. What lead you there? It seems out of left field. And, still, why would getting a jump on BC before AP Physics C suggest a problem? I see no easy walk into that answer.
@sevmom: As my kids worked just as the young person at the center of the thread, and took BC in their junior year, I did not even know that there was such a course as AB until school year 2015-2016. It seems to me an unfettered, unhurried, “organic” walk forward, as it is what I have seen my kids do, and what I thought “all” did.
I realize that it is not, but neither is it a rush, as I see it.
My DS got an A in Pre-Calc, but took AP/AB as was the “next class to take”. He did very well and got a 5 on the AP exam.
In his class, however, was a kid who was acing every AB test at the beginning of the year. It was obvious he knew all of the material already. The school moved him into BC early on in the school year.
Is there an opportunity to suggest this to the Dept Head? Maybe it’s a good compromise.
@Waiting2exhale I don’t see it was out of left field. Perhaps you can describe why you think so, preferably in detail? Secondly, that is not what I said. I suggest you to read it again.
Student is two grade levels ahead and earned an A in honors precalculus. BC (I.e. calculus at college pace instead of the slower AB pace) is the obvious next course for such a top student in math.
What were her PSAT scores, and what was the threshold the school is using to deny her?
@ucbalumnus As a few of us have now said, in some high schools, you start with AB even if you are advanced and a “top student in math.”
However, the OP’s school offers a standalone BC course for students who have just finished precalculus, but has denied the OP’s daughter that course, which makes no sense.
But, it may make sense to the school. The OP has not been back to provide more detail.
@SculptorDad: Alright, finally I see what you are saying in your comment.
I could not see the “valid concern” as being something which might be a concern of the family’s at all, but as one which you would intimate might be a concern - suggestive of a need for the student to break up those often simultaneous fields of study across two different years.
If your concern (and yours alone, as I sensed it to be) were to be mirrored by a school placement department which often sees the simultaneous study of AP Calc BC and AP Physics C as par for the course, then such a department concern might determine to deny entry to BC to any student it viewed as seeking to circumvent the pattern and practice of those of its truly top performing students. Placing such a student in AP Calc AB might be seen as ensuring success for a student suspected of needing a slower, less complicated pacing.
“…that could be a valid concern too,” was furthering not your support for the student and parent to have the student placed in BC, but in line with a school system which has already said the student will not be placed in the course.
So, it is all out of left field when that is how it hits me, as it did, and still does to some degree. I see no reason to even wonder if the student struggles with the idea of any of the coursework to come, but, that is where your thoughts took you.
All of this is individual to the particular high school. One of my kids took AP Calculus BC and AP Physics B at the same time. At his school, AP Physics C was not even an option, just was not even offered. This was a diverse, urban public school. not a magnet type school where science or math was emphasized. You may have more options in a magnet, high performing , or private kind of school and possibly more pressure as well?
Yes, @sevmom, it does seem that the available options are going to vary greatly, school to school. I find it all very interesting, how differently things can be handled.