@WWWard - Looking for any clarification on the USC placement tests. For WWWard, that’s amazing that your daughter was admitted to Princeton. Wanted to make sure you saw this since you have a daughter already attending USC.
My daughter was admitted to Dornsife for Neuroscience. According to the USC website, it looks like she has to take placement tests in Math and Chemistry. She was planning on taking Chemistry again at USC as AP Chem was a very hard class. She got a B and a 700 on her SAT Chem subject test but didn’t get a 4 or 5 on the AP Chem test (as a Junior).
She is taking AP Calc AB as a senior. She is pretty confident she got a 4 or 5 on the AP exam.
I am curious what effect these placement tests have on class selection and/or placement. She wanted to test out of Calc 1 at USC (only math required for BS in neuroscience). She may take more math for Computational Neuroscience but has not decided. She had Trig as a sophomore (2 years ago) and didn’t want a placement test to negate her possibly testing out of Calc 1.
Can anybody shed any light on this?
Thanks. Because of my daughters majors, the only placement exams applicable were for the foreign language. @CADREAMIN or others whose children had STEM majors may have more insight for you. Good luck with that Calculus AP exam score. My daughter is also hoping for a 4 or 5, so that it can serve as a GE equivalent.
The placement tests that you take during pre-orientation are only for determining if you need to be placed in remedial math/chem courses. The way that you qualify for taking higher level math/science courses is through your AP or IB exam scores. As far as I am aware, SAT subject test scores will not allow you to take more advanced courses, but I haven’t seen it explicitly stated anywhere. There are also tests administered on campus during orientation for math (potentially science) and language, though I’m not sure exactly how the orientation tests impact class placement.
I only know about language placement tests. I thought having taken college level courses in a foreign language, I’d be exempt and could automatically be placed into the third level required of USC, but I had to take a placement test anyway. I thought I’d be able to test out of the language being a heritage speaker, but alas, that didnt’ happen. I was correctly placed into the third level. However, had I performed worse, USC told me that I could sign a waiver and still enroll in third level class, but that the waiver basically states that I know I am enrolling in a class that my test results have determine that I am not qualified to take and if I get a bad grade, I assume all responsibility. I’m not sure if it works the same way for math/science placement tests, but I really just think USC wants an idea of what level you are in a particular subject before you try to pursue more advanced courses in the subject/area.
@zettasyntax - I am hoping that is how USC utilizes the placement tests. I have always encouraged my daughter to not take a year off from math in high school. The possibility of starting to get rusty is too great, particularly in higher math. If she does pursue BS in Neuroscience as her major and gets a 4/5 on A/B Calc AP test, she may be done with math.
She is still pretty proficient in math she took a few years ago but has gotten a little rusty on some of the trig. 7th grade algebra, 8th geometry, 9th algebra 2/trig, 10th advanced algebra, 11th precalc (this turned out to be a waste of her time, should have taken A/B calc; bad teacher; she got an A but had to relearn the math correctly in 12th grade Calc A/B).
I have told her if she does plan on pursuing a major, or second major, that requires more math, it would be wise to knock that out quickly. A friends daughter who went to Governors school in VA is getting her Mechanical Engineering degree at Virginia Tech and she went through math up to Multivariable Calc in high school. Her college classmates were telling her “take the math again in college”, “you’ll get easy A’s”. They were wrong. Some of the Professors at Virginia Tech absolutely use as a weed out course and some of her classmates who did very well in upper math in high school, and did well enough on the AP’s to place out of these courses struggled to get low B’s and high C’s.
She needs to save her energy for the horrors of organic chemistry!!
@jcwjnw99 I’ve gotten incredibly rusty with math. My major really only require statistics, so when one my courses briefly mentioned introductory calculus, my head was spinning.
I think math at USC might be the same way. People have told me that math at USC makes them hate math. Somebody I know dropped out of linear algebra two semesters in a row and took a W both times. He says it’s really that hard and once you fall behind, it’s pretty much impossible to catch up. I agree that it would be a good idea for her to knock out math asap if it required for majors that require higher-level math. I definitely know I’d fail even pre-calc if I were to take the course again for “fun”. I took the easy way out and went with astronomy for a physical science GE, but even then, I sometimes made ridiculous math errors. I’d be terrified of ochem 
@Alia01 is correct, placement tests keep you out of remedial math and give you a starting point which can be bypassed with HS math and resulting AP test. For reference, my CS & Math major took Multivariable in Sr year (AP Calc BC as junior) got 5 on AP test and started in Calc III at USC.
The placement test is very basic (that’s relative of course) and will simply “approve/send/place” you in math 118 or math 125 depending on what is required for your major, the other grades and scores you bring in allow you to start beyond those.