My daughter was all set to take AP Calc AB next year (she’ll be a senior), but her guidance counselor called her in to day and it looks like unless she wants to give up taking a 4th year of Honors French (no AP French is offered at her school) or give up taking the audition-only choir class she’s very passionate about, she will have to switch to AP Stats as her math for next year. She plans to major in History or Political Science or something in the Humanities, so she’s not a STEM kid.
She’s applying to very selective liberal arts schools (Scripps, Wellesley, Smith, Vassar, Macalester, Tufts, etc.). Will taking AP Stats instead of AP Calculus look back on her application? She will end up with 8 AP classes and 11 honors transcript on her transcript and has straight As so far.
Is your daughter very passionate about French?
Honestly, I doubt any of those schools would care much if she gave up a 4th year of french or took stats instead of calc. But if she is just taking french to get another language credit, I would do calc instead because it’ll get her out of it in college.
She is VERY passionate about French and thinks she will probably minor in French in college. She also plans to study abroad in France (she’s already done a summer exchange program there and we’ve hosted French exchange students as well). So that’s why she doesn’t want to give it up. Her school isn’t huge so they only have one section of some of a number of her classes (APES, AP Music Theory, etc.). Even with taking zero hour gym she can’t fit it all in.
By itself, statistics is more useful than calculus for a social science major. However, some social scientists need to make heavier use of statistics and quantitative methods; calculus may be a prerequisite for, and helpful to understand, statistics beyond the introductory level (that AP statistics is).
Humanities majors will likely find statistics to be more useful in general (not specifically for their majors), but philosophy majors will probably benefit from the practice gained by taking the most rigorous available math courses.
Definitely go with French then. She can always take calculus later, but from my experience, ceasing language study for a year can be detrimental to your knowledge of it.
No. However, as this decision is out of her control, she should request that the GC mention on the Secondary School Report that the choice of classes was made as a result of a schedule conflict.
No. As a social science major, she likely won’t need calculus, whereas she will need to take statistics, so it’ll actually hlp her for her major to take statistics. Taking a 4th year of French + Choir + Ap Stats sounds like a great combination considering her interests.
BTW, if possible, she should not take the AP Stats credit and take the actual class in college unless her AP Stats class is more rigorous than average. She’ll need statistics for social science study/research and the colleges will offer a more thorough class than AP stats, so taking the class would get her ahead compared to someone who’s not studied it, but wouldn’t suffice as a replacement.
A more thorough class than introductory (non-calculus-based) general statistics or AP statistics would likely be a major-specific quantitative methods course, or a statistics course with calculus as a prerequisite. If such a course is required, it is unlikely that AP statistics will be allowed to substitute for it.
