<p>My daughter took Calc at Interlochen Arts Academy senior year and the teacher prepared them for the AP test. Part of our deal with allowing D to go to Interlochen for her last 2 years of high school to study voice was that her academics remained strong. She had transferred from a top private school in Dallas. She didn’t love math, but had a great teacher. She struggled, because she was having to travel to auditions for college and missing classes. She begged us to let her drop it since she was going to “fail”. We wouldn’t let her. She got an A and a 5 on the AP test. The next year as a Rice freshman she thanked us (imagine that…) for making her stick with it since she did NOT have to take math in college and everyone around her was finding calc very difficult at Rice.</p>
<p>Quote:
Why close the door on all these fields now by having your D concede defeat?</p>
<p>*Not sure why taking ‘regular’ calc is closing any doors. She is still ahead in math and there is no reason she can’t take calculus in college. *</p>
<p>Yeah, I don’t get that either.</p>
<p>I would not push Calc. My S has been on the accelerated math track at our small school. Took AP Calc AB junior year (got As and Bs and a 5 on AP exam) and is taking BC senior year. He will not be studying math, science or engineering in college and half way through the year is wondering why he didn’t take AP Statistics, as it would have been more useful to him. If your D is bored with math and is not planning on majoring in math or science I do not understand the push. Also, will probably have a better GPA with AP Statistics rather than AP Calc.</p>
<p>Agree with so much of what’s been said</p>
<p>This isn’t just one teacher making the recommendation. It’s a trend. You know your child better than they do, but acknowledge that they do have some expertise in the area of math instruction and that they do want to do right by the students. </p>
<p>Calculus is not necessary for many fields. If your D pursues one where it is necessary, she can take the course in college. Having had regular calc in hs will put her ahead of the game.</p>
<p>Put it in perspective. She is not being forced down into remedial math. She is being recommended for reguarl calculus as opposed to AP.</p>
<p>I don’t think I would push. Senior year is tough and stressful. Why add to that with a course where the D will need to be pushed, have to work very hard, and still not make top grades?</p>
<p>Quote: Schools that restrict enrollment in Calculus AB to only selected students are a lot more about trying to protect high pass rates than they are about doing what is best for kids.</p>
<p>I dont agree with this. Ss school has restricted enrollment because they are advanced classes designed for ADVANCED STUDENTS if the teacher slows down for the kids that dont easily get it, then the rest of the class suffers. AP classes at Ss school require a certain grade in prerequisite coursework, and recommendation from the previous teacher. Despite this, S still found himself in APUSH class with kids that couldnt keep up with the fast pace and needed repeated explanations . . . the result was that they didnt get through WWII come May and S had to self-learn the remainder of the 20th century. (Hes the only student to get a 5 on the exam.) S fears his AP Physics class is headed down that same road, and unlike history, he cant just read ahead on his own. S was really glad that his Honors Precalculus teacher told the class in the beginning that since it was a dual enrollment class, he had to stay on the colleges schedule and could not slow down if the kids werent getting it, they need to get tutoring or drop to the regular precalculus class. </p>
<p>It sounds like the OPs Ds teachers recognize that she could benefit from the slower pace of the regular course.</p>
<p>My daughter, now in grad school, has had to take two grad level statistics classes and has said how she wished she had taken stats in HS and as an undergrad. I think for non-math majors statistics just makes more sense.</p>
<p>Here is a placement test that the student can try to see how her knowledge of precalculus concepts stands compared to college expectations of students’ preparedness to take calculus:
[Calculus</a> Placement Exam | Department of Mathematics at University of California Berkeley](<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam]Calculus”>http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam)</p>
<p>I am confronting this same issue: overwrote recomendation for 8th grade math to be non-honors. D received an A in honors math in 8th grade Algebra. </p>
<p>D then recomended for honors math in 9th grade. Slow start with a low B, currently has high B+. This was Geometry, and she had some issues adapting to H.S. that partially accounted for the low early grade.</p>
<p>Again, recomended for 10th grade, non-honors math. Do I push into honors again for
10th grade? </p>
<p>I see our pattern, in that when I push D, she succeeds. She works just a bit harder, focuses a bit more, and viola. </p>
<p>D wants honors math in 10th grade, likes math, says its fun, though she is 'just not that fast with problems like the other kids".</p>
<p>D tends to do very well on shorter exams, less so on longer exams. Just does not finish, or makes careless errors at the end of the test. </p>
<p>I am inclined to go again with the honors.</p>
<p>OP If you are looking for merit aid you are going about this all wrong. You should have followed teacher’s math advice and kept her in the lower level math track and made sure she got straight A’s – which she was likely to have done. She will be penalized in both merit aid and college admissions for not having the A average. Colleges won’t admit it but they would rather see the all A’s than B’s in a harder track. I have seen many students fall into this trap, thinking the top schools will admire their fortitude. They were denied admission. Let your daughter take the regular Calc class or Statistics. It sounds very unlikely that she will major in anything which requires strong Math skills but in order to keep all doors open, the regular Calc will be just fine. This will also give her some time to enjoy her Senior year which will be far more beneficial for her.</p>
<p>OP – It sounds as though 3 different teachers have indicated that your daughter is not ideally positioned for honors math. Senior year is stressful enough without adding to it with AP Calc AB when regular Calc is an option. I would also talk to the AP Stats teacher and/or her current math teacher to see if that may be a better fit for her. You say she responds when pushed. After next year, the only one pushing her will be herself.</p>
<p>anothermom3 – your issue sounds somewhat different in that your daughter likes math and says she wants to be in honors math. She can always get a tutor to increase her problem-solving speed or drop down to regular math if she gets overwhelmed in honors math.</p>
<p>OP,
Instead of fighting, help your child. Open up her math textbook, figure out and help her solving the problems. HS math is not rocket science at all, very far from it. Our D. did not struggle in math, it has always been easy for her. However, few times she had questions. We did exactly what I am suggesting here. Kids do not read their books carefully enough, surprisingly they are not even efficient in using the index at the end of the book. I sat down every time, read material and resolved the problem (including calc) and explain it to my D. and ask her to solve it on her own. She always complained that I am not good tutor, I cannot explain as clearly as her teacher. She was correct about it. But she could not have incomplete or incorrectly solved math homework problem, not in my house, no way.<br>
D. ended up having easier time in hard sciences at college because of her strong math background. As an SI to Ghem prof in college, she promoted wider use of math in Chem. Kids loved her sessions and prof. awarded her for improving grades in his Chem. class. Our approach has worked, try it!</p>
<p>^^^^^^There is no way no how I could ever help my daughter with calculus. That would be bad advice for my family.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was my first thought exactly.</p>
<p>Find out what the actual difference between the two courses is (other than one being encouraged to take the AP test and the other not). The course description makes them appear rather similar.</p>
<p>“Colleges won’t admit it but they would rather see the all A’s than B’s in a harder track.”</p>
<p>S’s GC told me years ago, it is better to have a B in an AP class than an A in an honors or regular class. Any other opinions on this?</p>
<p>Our school adds 1.0 to AP grade and 0.5 to Honor’s grade for GPA. So, an AP B is equal to 4.0 and an A equals 5.0.</p>
<p>“She will be penalized in both merit aid and college admissions for not having the A average. Colleges won’t admit it but they would rather see the all A’s than B’s in a harder track. I have seen many students fall into this trap, thinking the top schools will admire their fortitude. They were denied admission.”</p>
<p>This is the danger. And regarding slowing down classes so that everybody can take AP: blame the high school ranking lists, which vault schools to the top depending on how many students take AP.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>However, the more selective the school is the more likely they are not going to be using the weighted grade because there is already an expectation that kid is taking the most rigerous course and doing well. The school will already know that all 4.0s are not created equally.</p>
<p>In Op’s case, her daughter is getting low 80’s , which puts her in the B- range. If this is her weighted grade and her school gives the same weight as your school, then in reality she is probably a C student. Her overall unweighted gpa could very well suffer for this and take her out of contention for merit $$ because on the counselor recommendation they do ask for both the weighted and unweighted gpa.</p>
<p>Our experience has been that while a B in an AP class has trumped the A in a regular college prep class when it comes to college admissions, when it comes to merit aid you may be better off taking the regular CP class. Our younger daughter pushed herself to take Honors math through Algebra and Geometry, and despite her best efforts she was a B student. She also signed on for Honors Trig in her junior year but immediately struggled, earning a low D for her first interim report. My wife and I urged her to reconsider and she reluctantly agreed to drop to regular NYS Regents Trig. Her grades immediately rebounded an she ended the year with an A-. She’s now a senior taking regular college prep pre-calc and is doing fine. While she did not apply to the most competitive schools she was accepted to all of the colleges she applied to, including her Top 50 LAC reach school. We found that while the admissions officers responded positively to her choice of challenging herself in her weakest subject (until she hit the proverbial brick wall), financial aid offices wanted to see raw numbers and here’s where math grades in her freshman and sophomore year hurt. Her “B” in Honors Geometry (or Algebra) cost her about $8,000 in merit aid PER YEAR at one college. I’m not sure we would change the way we did things – particularly since it was DD who insisted on going the Honors route – but it did cost her $ even if it enhanced her chance of admission to certain colleges.</p>
<p>BTW, it’s been my experience that most public high schools in NYS (where the OP lives) only list the unweighted grades on the transcript. A weighted GPA is used to determine class rank but weighted grades are not shown for individual courses. I would emphasize, however, that the transcripts I have seen have been from Upstate NY districts and it may well be more common in NYC & environs for schools to list both weighted and unweighted grades for courses given.</p>
<p>“Her “B” in Honors Geometry (or Algebra) cost her about $8,000 in merit aid PER YEAR at one college.”</p>
<p>They broke it down for you? I’m surprised they would give you that info. My oldest is a senior, so this is new to me.</p>
<p>Frazzled kids took the toughest possible schedules at their high schools and had no problem getting oodles of merit aid from some pretty good schools (including a top 20 school and several top 50 schools) without having straight A’s, but other stats (SAT’s, AP scores) were high. I know for certain that at least from our high school, this situation is hardly unique. Just saying…</p>