4th Annual AP Report to the Nation Released

HomeschoolDad
Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:46:00 +0000

On an earlier question about Calc AB and BC, these are not sequential courses, they are alternative courses. If you attend a school that offers both, and you are pretty strong in math. you take AB, if you’re very strong in math you take BC.

AB is equivalent to first semester college Calc I taught over the time-span of a full year–it’s a half-college-pace course. BC is a full-year course that covers Calc I and II, i.e. it is taught at college pace.

In schools that only offer AB, in which some students complete this in 11th grade and earn 4-5 AP test scores, we often see them taking in Calc II and III in senior year at a nearby college or university, if transportation and scheduling allow it.

Most of the elite-tier universities offer Honors Calculus to students with BC 5 scores. This is an extremely difficult theoretical course, best suited to physics and electrical engineering majors, as well as math majors.

Most students who have BC 5 scores but plan to major in chemistry, life sciences, or economics, in a first-tier research university, and who want to keep an option open to do undergrad research, and possibly pursue a Ph.D., should take regular calc (rather than take pass out credit), because except for a small number of public high schools, for example Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology and the Bronx High School of Science, and a few dozen or so private prep schools, AP Calculus is not equivalent to first-tier research universities’ regular calculus.

(Easy check: does your high/prep school’s calculus course(s) use a university textbook, such as Stewart, Thomas or Hughes-Hallett? If so, taking pass-out credit is appropriate. Move on to a probability and statistics course for research-track students. (If you earned a 5 in AP Stat, move on to a p & s course for research-track students.) If your high school or private school uses an “AP Calculus” textbook, take calculus again at university.)