itry

^^^you are an extremely cool kid. I feel very proud o you and envy you tremendously. Honestly kid, know one cares. About 50% of the top 20% kids in our class skipped or took two classes of one subject at once so you are nothing special.
Now back to Eiffels response. Personally I would only skip if it interests you but I you are skipping it to get ahead in another subject then I think it would be okay. What you can do is take precalc online or somewhere over the summer so you have an edge in class next term. Check out thinkwell.com they have amazing programs. I'm pretty sure they have precalc or something similar( they give different names for certain subjects). Then senior year you can swap math with something else. I think this would be the best way. Hope this helped!

itry

*no one
kinda hard spelling right on a phone

Eiffel

Actually, itry, I'm already a senior. My school operates on the block system, so I need to decide what math class to take next term. So, they won't even see my grade in whatever math class I take because by then, I'll either be accepted or rejected. So, while I will aim for an A or B in the class next term, I'm primarily concerned with the rigor of the class and how it will look on my transcript. Personally, I'd rather take a class at the CC. But if it'll look a lot worse than Honors Pre-Cal at my HS, I will probably just suck it up and go for that class despite my ill feelings towards it. I just need to know how much worse Calc I at the CC would look.

itry

wait, if you are a senior now then what did you take fresh/soph years?

Eiffel

I took Honors Geometry as a freshman, Honors Algebra II as a sophomore, didn't take any math my junior year.

Saugus

Dude, I'm telling you, take Honors Pre-Calculus...

I mean, no offense or anything, but the below average kids usually stop at Algebra 2. Pre-Calculus is kind of like a necessity.

whitecadillac

^yeah, he already decided on that like a couple pages ago. lol. i think his new question is whether he should take calculus I at the cc or honors pre-cal at hs...

Saugus

^
Wait, how can you take Calculus without first taking Pre-Calculus?

Eiffel

From earlier in the thread: "Okay, so I have the choice of taking one of the following classes at the community college:

1.) Precalculus: Functions/Graphs
2.) Calculus-Bus-Soc & Behav Sci
3.) Analytic Geometry & Calculus I

Does anyone know which of these would look best? Keep in mind that I haven't taken Precal but both 2 and 3 on my list said that only algebra was required before taking them..."

But someone said I should take Honors Pre-Cal at my HS. I really don't want to because even my math genius friends say she's a bad teacher and makes the subject confusing, but I don't know how much of a difference it would make to colleges if I took Pre-Calc or Calc at a CC rather than my HS...

itry

I mean it would look better to take honors at high school. If you take an online course for precalc, you would know everything beforehand and can avoid the bad teaching of the precalc teacher because you would know everything.

Jalmoreno

I'm a little confused (mostly skimmed the posts) are you a junior or senior right now?

Anyway, you should definitely look into taking Pre-Calc. If you're a junior I would take Pre-Calc at the cc over the spring semester then take calculus (preferrably AP at your high school) your senior year. If you are scarred of taking calculus you could always take Stats or more basic Calc like Survey of Calculus/ Business Calculus (Better if you just think math is too applied). I would not recommend taking Calculus without taking Pre-Calc first. Pre-Calc is mainly a review of Alg II, but it includes new topics such as new trig, vectors, conics (now in 3-D, that'll be fun - not), polar/parametic (I know they exist, don't know what they are), and limits. I can't see someone who doesn't like math skipping Pre-Calc to go into Calc

The advice about taking high school honors over college dual enrollment varies by college. I don't know the system in Princeton, but I can tell you the system here in Florida State Universities. At places like UF you get 0.5 weighting on your GPA for honors classes and 1.0 weighting for dual enrollment classes. Also, some dual enrollment classes, in math at least, will equate a semester at cc for a full year at high school. Thus, by taking 1 semester of pre-calc you get more weighting and more credit (major GPA boost, unless you bomb) However, if you have to pick between online dual enrollment and high school class, I would go with high school because learning math online doesn't seem that easy.

Like you said, your interested in non-science related fields, so you probably won't need advanced math (you might need Stats though). If I were you, presuming your in your 1st semester of junior year, I would take Pre-Calc dual enroll, then Calc (semester at cc or full year AP in school), and, if Calc is at cc, a semester of Stat. Beware, Princeton might take AP credit (schools are most leniant on giving credit for Calc than any other subject) but will probably not take any dual enrollment credits.

Jalmoreno

Just to calrify my bias from the previous post, I love math and am on Pre-Calc math team.

I get the desire to not work at you worst subject. I'm taking AP English language this year, next year (probably duting summer) I'll take dual enrollment english (probably, british lit)

Another tidbet of advice, if you're going to slack off in a subject, pull some heavy lifintg in others (preferably something related. for math = physics, chemistry, statistics, etc.). Next year I don't plan on taking AP English Lit, so I'll take AP Euro (much more interest + teacher can write good recommendation for me)

P.S. sorry for all typos, had a hard day at school, and its semi-late.

Eiffel

Thanks a lot for your reply, Jalmoreno. I'm actually a senior, so I can't do exactly what you suggest. I decided to take Stats online through my CC and then take Pre-Cal at the actual CC, both next term. Maybe that won't be good enough for Princeton, but I'll try anyway.