Son qualified for AIME as a 6th grader but did not qualify in 7th grade. In 6th he was taking Algebra II with the 8th grade group, but his charter middle school does not offer a course higher than Alg II so this year (and next year) he does independent study during math period. He still seems to love math but definitely was more engaged when he was learning with other kids and has not been as keen as he was before.
His local public high school will not be able to offer him much past AP Calc BC and AP Stats. He will take PreCalc in 8th so in theory BC as a 9th grader. An option would be to send him to a private school. We have seen a particular private school that is quite involved in various math competitions that my son has attended and I think they can keep him learning in a group throughout high school. Have others with “mathy” kids seen their kids perform better with others and does it seem worth the added expense to provide this opportunity. While we can afford it, I hate to spend the money if not necessary.
Whether or not the student is “mathy” is not really the most important factor. What really matters is whether or not said child is an introvert or extrovert. Both introverts and extroverts have mathematically inclined individuals among them. Granted, mathematical inclination is more common among introverts, but the kid him/herself matters the most.
Seems like your son is more of an extrovert, so assume that he works better in groups. If you want further math for him past the AP courses, look at Calc 3, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, and Discrete Math. Whether it is best done through an arranged independent study or by actually attending a community college (and gaining dual enrollment credit) is a matter worth looking into.
Alternatively, take it a bit slower. It might not seem that way from the outside, but taking Calculus at 14 years old can be stressful and discouraging for even the smartest 14 year olds.
Thanks for your comments, son is an extrovert. I think I was looking at the math too much and thinking it could be math specific and did not focus on the social aspect like I should have done.
We have actively slowed math down after reading The Calculus Trap. We have tried to steer him towards other activities but he comes back to math. He used to read fiction for pleasure but now typically reads books on math. He is an active tennis and travel soccer player in case it seems that he only does math…
As I mentioned, the local public high school will not offer him a group of kids that love math like he does but the private school has a few that might.
If you think your son is not just an early learner, private school will be worth it. Second post #1. Many students take Algebra II, Precalc, Claculus AB and then Calculus BC yearly.
Where in this listing does your son take Geometry? Did he take Geometry as a 7th grader? In many high schools, the math sequence is Alg I, Alg II, Geometry, Pre-Calc, Calc AB, Calc BC. My kids’ school offers multi-variable calc after calc BC, but I’m not sure how worthwhile that is since most colleges won’t give credit for it. However, even that level looks to be something he would surpass before finishing high school at this rate. Also, if he goes too fast in the math sequence, he may forget the more basic skills tested on standardized college entrance exams (ACT, SAT, SAT Math II) by the time he takes it, or forget the fundamentals of the calc classes if there is a gap before college. If you prefer he continue at this pace, the options are most likely online classes or dual enrollment at a local university or cc.
Congrats to your son on qualifying for AIME in sixth grade! Is he doing AoPS? Your reference to The Calculus Trap makes me think maybe so. I would have him take as much as possible from them before moving on; they are a tough act to follow. He sounds strong enough that their WOOT class could be of interest to him before too long.
My homeschooled daughter did all of her high school math with AoPS, and took their wonderful calculus course in ninth grade. After that she switched her focus from math to art for a couple of years, so the competition stuff wasn’t a focus anymore, but finding interesting options for Calc II and III wasn’t easy. Most were dreary and mechanical after AoPS, which was all proofs. Is there a university nearby where he could take dual-enrollment courses? There you could find more interesting approaches to Calc II and beyond on the more theoretical track. Is there a math circle in your area?
For distance learning, Stanford Online High School has MV, Linear Algebra, DIffEQ, even a couple of Analysis courses. And eIMACS has a wonderful series of mathematical logic classes.
Thanks for the feedback. My son has been working with AoPS for a few years now and also has done a few math competitions. He likes the competitions and while he has done well, he is not nearly as quick as the top math kids in the competitions. The plan is for him to continue using AoPS including WOOT but he has several more courses to finish. We are lucky with a Math Circle nearby but they only meet once per month. We also found a college professor from the Math Circle that tutors him 3-4 times per month. He really enjoys those math sessions.
At some stage, I really felt like after the middle school he would come back to the local high school and we would work with them to ensure he was challenged either through AoPS or some other online course but as I mentioned initially he seems to thrive when he is learning with others as opposed to doing it alone.
He is very excited to be going to a math summer camp in a month and I am hoping that will be a great experience for him.
Re the question posted if he is just an early learner - possibly, and I would be definitely ok with that. I am hoping to get some more insight into that after this math summer camp is over.
Finally, re Geometry - his sequence has been a bit unusual as we buy the AoPS books for him and he independently works through the book and then does the AoPS online course. So he did AoPS Geometry in 6th and then completed the online course in 7th. He worked AoPS Int Algebra this year and he will take the online course in 8th while working through Int Counting & Probability. He also wants to go through the PreCalculus online course in 8th grade and has begun working on the book. I do not think he will forget material that he learned as he works a lot of contest problems so he gets practice with old concepts regularly.
Thanks again for the comments, at this stage I think I am leaning more heavily toward the private school option as I do think this may help him find a group to interact with in mathematics.
Does the private school have any math past Calc BC? If not, your child is going to be stuck with no math classes from the high school after ninth grade. Rather than take precalc in 8th grade, perhaps he can try one of the other courses in AOPS, such as Intro or Inter. Number Theory, for example. They don’t teach this stuff in high school, and it would definitely be worthwhile. Then he can take precalc in 9th and Calc BC in 10th. I don’t see the need to rush to calculus - it’s sophisticated at a conceptual level, and I think there is a benefit in doing basic proofs and such that you would see in a number theory course.
My D2 is an introvert, but still learns math (at least) better with a group. Ideally, it is also a group of introverts, then they don’t drive her crazy.
In the public HS, son was put in a class with the head of math department. I think he did a lot of work independently. In 10 & 11 grade, he took classes at the local U. He and a friend formed a math club, which was fun for them.
I only spoke with one local private school, and this one didn’t offer the higher level,classes that were available at the U.
We are in NC and there is a state STEM boarding school available for 11th and 12th which my son hopes to attend. Clearly, loads can and will change between now and then which might impact him wanting to go or us allowing him to go, if accepted. The private offers several classes beyond calc but if he still likes math and is doing well, the thought is that he could apply to the boarding school.
Son wanted to do precalc right away but his tutor suggested to do the AoPS online Interm Counting and Probability and Interm Algebra before precalc (the online Interm Algebra will be challenging as all AoPS courses are, but he has worked almost every question in the book already so it should be more reinforcement of what he has learned). I do not have a strong math background so my plan is to see how he progresses and if all think he is ready he can do Calc in 9th, if not ready, plenty of time. He likes Number Theory the most so I am sure he will take the Intermediate course after he completes his current schedule, the Intro to Number Theory was his first AoPS course.
momprof94 - I purchased the EPGY Geometry course a few years ago but we had issues getting the software to work so ultimately abandoned the course and went with AoPS. This year after son had finished his math courses and along the lines of slowing him down I had him do the now giftedandtalented Intro to Physics course as I still had a credit outstanding. Physics was definitely a challenge at first but he liked it and did well in the course - A or B, waiting on grade. Not sure how that might relate to him being able to handle Calculus but the Physics looked pretty difficult…
I would generally recommend public school over private school unless the public school is not a school of good quality. This probably wouldn’t be the most popular response, given how strongly a pre-Ivy approach this subforum takes to high school. However, I have found from all of my friends and family who had gone to both high-quality public schools and private schools in the US, the public school option was easier on the wallet and better for the students in the long run. The environment of the private school is always in a way artificial (in that it’s trying to create a certain environment, e.g. that of a STEM-only school) while public school is more representative of what “the real world” looks like. Don’t think that it’s necessarily better for students to be only among “gifted” peers, because more often than not that limits their development as a person overall.
You have to also realize that very few people actually know what direction they really want to go in life at 14. Maybe he likes math now, but in the future it might not be so simple. Differential equations and abstract algebra can be a shock to the system and can really make people reevaluate whether or not math makes sense as a career. So can taking biology, chemistry, physics, economics, history, etc. - it’s very likely that at least some of his other interests will develop and mature, and whether or not that makes him take a route that isn’t mathematics is not something that can be known ahead of time. I know that something similar did happen to me, that ultimately pushed me away from mathematics as a career (though I did end up earning a math degree in my undergraduate studies).
Are just plain classes not good enough? Given that he hasn’t gotten geometry, he can be considered to be +2 in math for his grade level. Which means Geometry in 9th, AP Calc in 10th and possibly 11th (depending on whether or not he can tackle the AP Calc BC exam on the first run through), then AP Stats, then Calc 3 and Differential Equations. Those are courses that can be reasonably expected by a strong high school program and nothing you should try to organize special “gifted” classes for.
I’m sure it depends on the private school. In elementary school, my son’s public was more willing to accommodate him than my nephew’s private. My introverted son, preferred doing math with others in elementary school. He did not end up as accelerated. He got distracted by computer programming instead. Your son might enjoy that if he hasn’t given it a try.
I must not have been clear as he did the AoPS Geometry course already. We started EPGY’s Geometry and had a lot of software issues so switched to AoPS. By the end of next school year he will have taken all of the AoPS beginning and intermediate series courses plus their Intro to Python course. He does enjoy programming and seems to be decent at it but typically uses his skills to make a program to solve a math problem.
@NeoDymium I agree with you re public v private and it is not just the money but it will be a long commute for us. Our local high school is ok but not very good. I think the private will more than likely have better teachers in other subjects. Also, going to the private should give him a much better chance at getting accepted into the residential boarding school I mentioned earlier.
I am quite happy if he decides math is not for him and I continually try to ensure there are other opportunities for him to pursue but so far he has not wanted to do other things, except for the sports he does which take a fair amount of time.
I think the math summer camp this year will be telling. He was much more excited about math a year ago when he was taking math with others. He still gets very excited when he goes to math club, contests or has his tutor lessons but these happen infrequently.
Middle school doesn’t really give you a lot of opportunities to explore a lot of academic areas, regardless of how many extra classes you give the student. Middle school itself is a little bit incompatible with the needs of smarter students, since it doesn’t really have a whole lot of meaningful academic tracking. So I can see how, after just middle school, he might think that math and math alone is his passion. That might stay that way, it might not. High school will give him a real chance to explore other areas: science in real depth (biology, chemistry, physics), economics, history, government, higher math, programming, etc., and even English. Middle school really doesn’t do a whole lot of good for the most talented of students.
You don’t sound like you have all that much money to spare if it is even an issue that your student wants to go to an expensive school. My recommendation is that you save your money, and use it for college. If the public is a pretty good school, then he will most certainly be able to accomplish anything he would in the private, albeit with more initiative necessary than in the private. Public schools have all the same opportunities, but private schools do a better job of telling you what you need to do to stand out without having to have the initiative to find out. The biggest factor, is that you really shouldn’t pigeonhole him into a math path or even a STEM path. If we were all what we thought we wanted to be at 14 years old, the vast majority of us would be miserable.
My mathy son is an introvert. Most of the time he learned what he was interested in on his own – in math, science, history, you-name-it. We “held him back” just a bit even when he entered Kindergarten, b/c we wanted him to “grow up” a little (was on borderline to enroll in K at age 4.5). In K he tested at 5th grade reading level. Throughout school he was way ahead of almost all of his classmates, and when he was assigned to work in small groups he was still that way. By the time he reached middle school he competed and finished 2nd in the state council of teachers of math competition.
The main issue for him, similar to the one for the OP’s son, was what to do in math when he ran out of math classes at the HS. We live in a college town, so a few (2 or 3) of the most advanced high school math students took either summer or academic year math at the college. We had no good private secondary school options nearby, and sending this kid away for private school could have been a social nightmare. He would still stand out but have zero friends and old playmates. Moreover, in HS he became deeply involved in a couple of EC’s that engaged him intellectually outside of the classroom, namely in journalism (opinion page editor for the HS newspaper) and policy debate (in which he was a state champion). These were also very good socializing activities for him because he worked in groups and teams.
In his senior year of HS he took no math, but was engaged at school (though still introverted), so why push him into a college environment? His EC’s at the high school totally absorbed his time, along with his major hobby (fantasy sports). He got into a fine university and his career has drawn on his math ability and on the very EC’s that engaged him in HS.
I have one kid who is very “mathy”. They are also extroverted and study alone. They never competed in any competitions or were they part of any math team. They utilized EPGY and the local public state flagship for math classes. They went to a public HS
I agree that peers are quite important. My kid also took precalculus in 8th grade and was the only kid in her rising high school class to have done so. She was shy and a little intimidated by the kids in her math classes who were mostly 2-3 years older. But, are you simply assuming there will be no peers, or do you know that to be the case? If it’s a large school, there could well be some other quite advanced kids and if they are currently attending other middle schools, would you know about them? There were in fact, other peer math students in our public school who my daughter connected with and that was a great experience for her. But unfortunately none of them happened to be in her grade and after they graduated she ended up attending a local college for a math course but it wasn’t the same at all.
However, I would not underestimate the impact of a long commute on his high school experience (and on you), and of course you have to consider what else you could do with that large amount of money.
I guess it’s too late now as school is ending, but I would have recommended that he visit both schools for a day or two, attend classes and any relevant math clubs. That could help a lot.
Also, I’m a bit confused. You want to send him to a private school so that he can leave and attend a boarding school? Why not just apply to the boarding school? I would make every effort not to disrupt his high school career with a change of schools unless it becomes evident that a bad choice was made.
@mathyone We are pretty certain about the level of the other kids in the region. The commute is not great but one advantage is that we spend an hour together on the way there which has been nice. We have had a one hour commute to his middle school…The private school we have in mind is active in the math world here and we have spoken to them and agreed in the fall for him to visit the school for a day to see what he thinks.
The boarding school is only for 11th and 12th grade students, it is highly competitive and the kids apply for admission in their 10th grade year.
