I’m currently taking AP Calculus AB as a junior and am kind of regretting it as I breeze through the course. I don’t want this drop down to depict myself as an inferior math student, however, so I’m looking to complete everything an AP Calc BC student would without actually taking the course (my school doesn’t allow schedule changes).
Next year, I’m planning on taking AP Stats (taking AP Calc BC will be really redundant with AP Calc AB).
Do you think completing Calc 1b at a community college and pairing that with my completion of Calculus 1a (through Calculus AB) will recreate the completion of Calculus BC?
I’ll have all the same college requirements completed as anyone who’s taken BC, but will colleges care about where I’ve gotten the requirements from or the fact that I’ve not taken an AP test for BC?
Without knowing the syllabus, nobody can advise you if calc 1b covers all the BC topics. The easiest thing would be to take the BC exam since, unless you are planning to attend an instate public, the community college course credits will likely not transfer.
I took both years of calculus at a community college during HS, since my HS didn’t offer it. Then for college applications I just had the CC send out a transcript, as with my HS. That didn’t seem to cause any confusion for the admissions people at Brown (though no CC credits transferred – at Brown no credits transfer from anywhere unless if you are a transfer student).
When I got there I skipped the normal math sequence (geared for incoming students with a year of HS calculus) and started in on upper-level math electives because back then it was easy to do whatever crazy things you wanted to… good idea or not.
There are a variety of somewhat unrelated subjects covered in a typical two-year calculus sequence. Best to pin it down with the CC prof as to what the differences are between the content of their 1b and your HS’s BC , should you decide to go that route. You don’t want to miss important material.