<p>Because I was not able to take Algebra 1 in 8th grade, I was screwed over for the next few years. Thus, as a senior I won't be in Calc BC but Pre-Calculus. I intend on majoring in engineering, but I am worried as to how not having taking calculus will affect me. For example on WashU's website, it says</p>
<p>"4 years of mathematics. (Architecture, Business, and Engineering strongly recommend calculus.)"
"as well as the most challenging math programs available, for students who plan to do course work in engineering, sciences, and/or pre-medicine."</p>
<p>I didn't take any honors math classes, and senior year I am talking 6 challenging APs and an honors class, and then Pre-Calculus... lol... Will this be fine?</p>
<p>Wash U is very competitive. You’d be well served to spread a wide net. Not saying you have no chance but know that your competition is chock full of high marks in honors/APs. Best o f luck to you</p>
<p>Yes of course. Wash U was just an example of one of my reaches. Oh well. I was planning to take Pre-Calculus over the summer to do AP calc next year, unfortunately I wont have enough time.</p>
<p>I can take it at the CC. However, my family is going on vacation for about a week in July. I would be missing a week of the class. Is that fine? Or would I be missing out on too much material/</p>
<p>I’d be missing roughly 6 class periods… I’ve never really had any trouble with math, but I’m more so worried if missing that many periods would get me kicked out of the class or something. If I tell them as early as I can, do you think there would be a problem?</p>
<p>Well since you are not allowed to take Calc BC, you are taking the most demanding math course allowed. Make sure you explain it in your application though. I don’t think they would hold it against you because you didn’t take accelerated math in 8th grade. If it was Caltech, I wouldn’t count on them being so flexible seeing that AP Calc is a requirement… But in your case, is say that you are more fine than not.</p>
<p>You can state that you will take calculus over the summer after your senior year as you got a later start than those who started with Algebra covered in 8th grade. If your grades are very good in the advanced maths offered right on up to PreCalc, ask your counselor to high light that and your math teacher to write an excellent rec about how well you know the material covered that you have taken. I have seen kids get accepted to top schools without having taken a calculus course in high school; not unusual for those looking at non math type programs. You are looking at programs that do require a strength in math so you will need something to show that you have a good chance of doing well in advanced math, just had a later start in it. </p>
<p>They actually offer calculus in college. Take PreCalc senior year and learn every morsel. Then take Calculus in college. If you can swing it, it would be good to plan on taking classes the summer after your freshman year to give yourself some breathing room. You probably won’t know enough to get a good internship then anyway, and it will lighten the load later when it gets heavy. </p>
<p>Give it a try for the pre-Calc in Summer. You should be able to catch up for that 1 week missed classes. You should have planned for that earlier that you may test out geometry by self-study or online course much earlier in high school. Taking Pre-Calc in junior (or earlier) is important not only for having Calc in senior, you may also take SAT2 Math2 in junior which requires some pre-Calc skills. All these would help your application to engineering programs. SAT2 Math2 may even be required for some.</p>
<p>But most schools do not; their sample engineering major schedules start math with calculus 1. Make sure that your knowledge of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and other precalculus topics is good, though.</p>
<p>Many students took AP Calc BC but did not score a 4 or 5 that they need to take Calc1/2 in freshman year. However, not having Calc in high school does make you less competitive although it is not absolutely required for applying to most engineering school. Even they have Calc1/2 in the freshman engineering schedule, many students would have the AP credit and skipped them. </p>
<p>I’ll try to find a way to fit it in. I didn’t realize how much this would have affected me back in 7th grade, but oh well! Hopefully it’s not too late to get signed up for the class at my CC.</p>
<p>If I am not able to do Pre-Calc over this summer and do AP Calc senior year - and instead do Pre-Calc senior year and then Calculus before I start college, would those who require calculus understand that?</p>
<p>That’s not the problem. A lot of people don’t get calculus in HS, or get a very weak calculus course and don’t get credit. </p>
<p>The problem is that engineering programs, because they are preprofessional programs, have a lot of requirements. It helps to get some tailwind. You have several options to mitigate the fact that you haven’t had calculus
take calculus as a freshman and do the normal sequence for your major. Expect to have a brutally heavy work load throughout college in order to pack all of your requirements into 4 years. Many people do this successfully. Many people do this and flame out.
Plan on taking longer than 4 years - an excellent option if you can afford it. Many people do this because they flamed out. It’s probably better to do this by design if you think it’s too hard to take so many classes at once.
Plan on going to school in the summer after your freshman year to get a little ahead so that you don’t have quite as brutal of a workload so that you can do well. </p>
<p>Some colleges are more amenable to different variations on this plan. Some less. Don’t go to a college that expects you to have had calculus in HS. Personally, I like Plan 3. </p>
<p>Missing 6 days from a summer course is like missing 2.5 weeks from a regular course. It’s going to be a huge hole in your coursework. However, much of pre-calc is not actually necessary for calc, unless your six days just happen to be the ones that are covering vital calc topics. Not going on summer vacation or absolutely making sure you make up the work while on the road through something like Khan Academy might be your best options if taking the course.</p>
<p>Pre-Calc is just more Algebra. Look at the book and table of contents.
I never had pre-calc in HS.
I’m engineer ungrad and you MUST take Calc in HS. You will struggle in college if you didn’t take Calc in HS notwithstanding whether you get admitted into top engineering college.
You should have doubled Algebra 2 and Geometry your sophomore year.</p>
<p>I’d rather take the course and miss 6 days instead of not taking the course at all, to be honest. My school itself didn’t even offer any math summer school classes, and I only recently was able to find out how important calculus is. Nobody ever even told me… nonetheless I’ll find a way to get it done.</p>
<p>You could look into doing PreCalc online over the summer and testing out. My son recently tested out by taking a community college assessment they give to students taking Calculus. He did not prep for the test all that much, other than some Trig practice. If your Alg II class includes a fair amount of Trig as his did, then most of PreCalc will be review. The mathy kids at his school told my son that PreCalc was mostly review. Get the PreCalc book from your school to see what is covered. In addition to Trig, the important topics are vectors (important for engineering/physics, which you may have already taken) and matrices (important for some computer science). However, the vectors and matrices may not be assessed in a test to skip PreCalc, because they are not immediately necessary for Calculus. </p>
<p>You could complete Precalc online (check out FLVS for instance, it’s free for Floridians but others can register, and there are other “public” online high schools). This way you wouldn’t miss any class. :)</p>