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Just ribbing SteveMA on his verbal ambiguity ;)</p>
<p>ucb, you are correct UT engineering requires “calculus readiness” for admission, but as Hunt observed (generally, not specifically as to Cockrell), I’m guessing few are admitted without it. Contrast, “prospective students considering a major in the College of Natural Sciences should take at least a beginning calculus (not pre-calculus) course during high school.” See details linked below. It is not a big deal for Texas kids heading either direction–reaching calc is a natural part of public school math sequence, as I assume it is everywhere. </p>
<p><a href=“http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/admission/majors/engineering[/url]”>http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/admission/majors/engineering</a>
<a href=“http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/admission/majors/natural-sciences[/url]”>http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu/freshmen/admission/majors/natural-sciences</a></p>
<p>Are you advocating US high school education should reserve calc for the rare savants? Sorry to be dense, but I don’t see the concern over taking calc in both HS and college. The fact most colleges don’t require HS calc for admission to their STEM programs doesn’t mean it isn’t desirable, IMO.</p>
<p>There are some colleges that require 2 semesters of math, but don’t provide many options for lower level math classes for credit other than stats and calc. They don’t specifically require calc, but they don’t give you many other choices.</p>
<p>A different way of considering it: Would a counselor check the “most demanding” course selection box on the Common App School Report (Counselor Recommendation) for a student who did not take calculus if it was offered at the school, and would that adversely affect the student’s chance of admission?</p>
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<p>No “reading between the lines” is needed. The part you quoted applies only to students who score a 3 or 4, not those who score a 5. And freshman calculus is pretty well standardized (Berkeley uses the Stewart book, which lots of other colleges use and which is one of the [suggested</a> textbooks for AP calculus](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>AP Calculus AB Course Audit – AP Central | College Board)), unless it is an honors course or is really a real analysis course (e.g. at Caltech and Harvey Mudd).</p>
<p>They do not discourage students who score a 5 on BC from enrolling in a college sophomore level math course:</p>
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<p>It is worth noting that MIT accelerates freshman calculus, so that 18.01 (calculus 1) is like two semesters of freshman calculus elsewhere, and 18.01A is a half-length course for students who have AP calculus AB with a 4 (BC allows skipping 18.01 entirely). MIT’s 18.02 (calculus 2) is multivariable calculus (normally calculus 3 at other schools); 18.02A is for students who completed 18.01A halfway in the fall term and want to start 18.02 at that time instead of waiting until the spring term.</p>
<p>[Fall</a> 2012 Course 18: Mathematics](<a href=“http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m18a.html]Fall”>IAP/Spring 2024 Course 18: Mathematics)
[MIT</a> Mathematics | Advanced Placement](<a href=“http://math.mit.edu/academics/undergrad/first/ap.html]MIT”>Advanced Placement)</p>
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<p>No. The point is that students and parents should not obsess about reaching calculus “only” in senior year, or only reaching precalculus in senior year. Better to make sure that the student learns the material well and have a solid base for the next course in the sequence in high school or college.</p>
<p>Indeed, “pushing” good-but-not-great students further ahead in math than is appropriate for them may be the reason for the common practice of teaching high school calculus over two years instead of one year.</p>
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<p>Repeating already-learned material is a waste of time and tuition. From a state government point of view, it is wastefully paying to teach the same stuff twice to the same student (once at the public high school and once at the public university or community college). If taught properly the first time, there should be no reason to wastefully (and boringly to the student) teach it again.</p>
<p>I live in Washington State and a lot of students at my daughter’s high school apply to the University of Washington. Getting into the UW is not as easy as it once was and some students with extremely high GPAs and test scores were being denied entry. My friend’s son was admitted in the spring of 2011 and my friend noticed that students with higher GPAs and test scores than her son, but who had not taken a calc class senior year (our school offers calc AB and calc BC classes), were denied entry (even if they had taken calc AB junior year) while students taking a calc class senior year were admitted.</p>
<p>So, even though the UW does not require applicants to have completed calc in high school it appears they do favor students who take it senior year. One of their requirements (and I think it is now a policy for state colleges) is that students take a “meaningful” math class senior year. I don’t know if that was a requirement when students were applying in Fall 2010 though or just their practice.</p>
<p>Also, the state Legislature now requires that the UW accept more in-state students so this spring there were a lot more students from my daughter’s school who were accepted at the UW and I don’t know if they all took calc senior year. My daughter is not taking any chances and she is in calc BC this year. She is interested in business and computer science so she would have to take calc in college anyway so she’s fine taking it.</p>
<p>Strange that a student two years ahead in math (calculus as a junior in high school) would take AB, unless it is one of those high schools that forces everyone in calculus to take AB.</p>
<p>How would the UW policy of wanting students to take a “meaningful” math course senior year apply if a student has exhausted the math offerings at his/her high school (e.g. took calculus BC as a junior)?</p>
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[QUOTE=ucbalumnus]
Repeating already-learned material is a waste of time and tuition. From a state government point of view, it is wastefully paying to teach the same stuff twice to the same student (once at the public high school and once at the public university or community college). If taught properly the first time, there should be no reason to wastefully (and boringly to the student) teach it again.<a href=“emphasis%20added”>/QUOTE</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation–got it! I think that would be a great goal for K-12 math reform. In my experience with several different Texas HS ranging from public to competitive private college prep, it is not currently realistic, the way math is taught, for the majority of students to achieve college-level mastery in HS. Also, it seems many colleges have fairly refined math tracks based on major and prefer that, after initial placement testing which may accelerate the student to a certain major-specific baseline, the student take particular courses in residence instead of place farther ahead. (This discussion is obviously limited to STEM majors.)</p>
<p>My daughter’s high school requires that students take calc AB prior to taking calc BC. The teacher is a former engineer and computer programmer (and also teaches the AP comp sci class) so she knows what the students need to succeed in college calculus and engineering classes, not just to pass the AP exams. 89% of her AB students (there were two classes with about 30 students each) scored a 3 (14%), 4 (31%), or 5 (44%) last school year. </p>
<p>My older daughter graduated in 2010 and one of her friends entered the engineering program at Washington State University. When he was home during the summer after freshman year I asked him if he used his calc AP credits and skipped the first two classes of calc and started in the third class and if so, if the calc classes in HS prepared him well. He said he did start in the third calc class and he did well. Then he said the reason he did well was because after he took the BC exam, the HS calc teacher made them learn another calc concept the last few weeks of the school year. He said at the time he was angry that she didn’t let them relax a little bit but when he got to college, that was one of the concepts he needed to know for his calc class and he was grateful that the teacher took the time to teach them that concept.</p>
<p>The UW counts physics and chemistry as a math class (and also as science classes) for senior year and my daughter’s school offers AP comp sci, and AP stats so there are plenty of math classes available. My daughter’s friend was three years ahead in math (took calc AB as a sophomore) so he took AP stats last year (and regretted it because it was too easy) and this year he is in calc BC. In addition, a student could take a higher-level math class at the local community college in the Running Start program.</p>
<p>As I stated previously though, if the UW is doing what they did a few years ago, if the students aren’t taking calc AB or BC senior year, it will be interesting to see if they are admitted even if they took AB as a junior or earlier.</p>
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<p>If he was that good in math to be three grade levels ahead, then the high school did him a disservice by not offering him a one year BC course.</p>
<p>When I went to high school, the only calculus course was a full speed BC course, and it was populated mainly be seniors who were one grade level ahead, plus an occasional junior who was two grade levels ahead. Any junior in the course was presumed to be a top student in math who would get a relatively easy A in the course and a 5 on the AP test.</p>
<p>OP, I think that kids take AP Calc AB and AP Calc BC not because calculus will be a requirement for admittance to college, but more so that the kids have AP classes on their transcripts. The increased “level of rigor” as marked by their GC on the LOR and possibly the 1 extra point calculated in GPA may help during admission to highly selective colleges.</p>
<p>Additionally 4 (or 3) years of math may be required (or recommended) for college application; so once your kids starts on the school’s accelerated math track, then just continue to shoot thru to AP Calc AB and BC.</p>
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<p>Is that really a hard requirement? As in, if you didn’t take Calculus your application is just thrown away? It seems weird that they’d require applicants take a calculus course and then not expect them to know calculus. Michigan claims to require foreign language and 4 years of English, but they don’t actually adhere to that requirement. Certainly it’s recommended, but if you don’t they’ll still consider you.</p>
<p>If you don’t have something that a college expects applicants to have, it seems to me that it would make sense to e-mail the college admissions office and ask whether it is a strict requirement or whether exceptions can be made.</p>
<p>Why go to the trouble and expense of actually applying to the college if you are not eligible?</p>
<p>If you want to apply to Wharton, which expects you to have taken calculus, but your high school does not offer calculus or you were not eligible to take it because of your math placement way back in 6th grade, it seems to me that the only people who could tell you whether your application is a waste of time are the ones in the Wharton admissions office.</p>
<p>Exceptions are made all the time for certain requirements. For example, many colleges want three years of the same foreign language, but they understand that some students cannot fulfill this requirement. (If you take German 1 and 2 in grades 9 and 10 and then move to a community where the high schools don’t teach German, there’s no way that you’re going to have three years of the same foreign language on your transcript, and it’s hard to imagine any college penalizing you for that, once they understand the circumstances.) I don’t know whether the same flexibility applies to calculus.</p>
<p>I know for a fact that Wharton has admitted kids without calculus, at least in the past, but probably not very many, and they either had very compelling stories or very compelling highlight reels.</p>
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I think this is an important point. Selective colleges want students to take the most rigorous high school courses. If a student couldn’t take calculus for some reason that’s one thing, but choosing not to take it might raise questions. I can tell you that at my kids’ school, kids gunning for top schools were worried that it might not look good that they chose to take AB instead of BC Calc. Perhaps they were paranoid.</p>
<p>My daughter’s counselor refused to check the “most demanding” box for her explicitly because she hadn’t taken AP Calculus. (Which peeved us no end, because the school had not permitted her to take AP Calculus when she transferred in.)</p>
<p>Yes. That’s the reason. Many top colleges say: Take the most rigorous courses in your HS.</p>
<p>JHS, I hope you don’t mind me asking but we are in a similar situation in that my daughter’s counselor likely won’t check the “most demanding” box because she wasn’t able to fit in a certain class (AP Science) because of a scheduling conflict. Do you think that hurt your daughter’s application or was she still able to get in the schools where she was applying?</p>