Do you REALLY have to take physics and calc?

College Majors Musical Theater Majors
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My daughter is a sophomore at a college prep school and the guidance from her school counselors is that all students should take physics and precalc as juniors (they also highly encourage calc in senior year). I think they know a lot about traditional college admissions, but they don’t work with a lot of students preparing for theater/music programs (which I understand to be largely audition based).

My daughter has a math disability, but is a strong student in the humanities and spanish, in addition to being an absolute powerhouse in the performing arts. My instinct is to encourage her to lean into her strengths, prioritizing arts classes and honors classes in her areas of strength, saving precalc for senior year and taking a different science course like Advanced Studies Environmental Bio or something along those lines.

My question is: will this be detrimental to her? She is definitely not aiming for the ivy league, but I want her to have options, including University of California schools that offer MT programs…can anyone who has been through this process recently speak to the importance of a “rigorous” STEM courseload for students preparing for theater/music? Thanks!

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Performing Arts programs will not care at all. She should, indeed, lean into her strengths - not dropping science and math but if taking APES and AP Stats it will be more than enough for non audition based programs (Regular statistics and regular precalculus also) and for audition based programs obviously they won’t care at all since it’ll all be the audition.
(Even for regular art&humanities majors, not MT, there’d be nothing wrong with taking stats&precalculus!)

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My kiddo loves math so he is taking calculus and loved physics, and I can tell you from what I have read here you absolutely do NOT have to take calculus and physics unless you are like my kiddo and want to go into fields like that. Some schools might require calculus but I suspect they are rare and not schools that have a big focus on the arts. I think it might be important to have 4 years of math, but there are other math options like statistics. There are even more more science options like forensics and environmental biology etc. When my kid was a sophomore I started looking up the requirements of schools I thought could be on the list. My son really struggles with language so any schools that required 4 years of a foreign language were off the list. Looking at the requirements also clued me into the fallacy that “ALL” schools required 4 years of a language or even 3. So I would look at schools that offhand seem of interest, NYU, Emerson, Berklee school of music etc. and see what their requirements are.

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We had this same discussion at our school with our musician son. The school wanted him to take precalc and he wanted to take statistics. He took statistics. It satisfied the graduation requirements and has been way more useful than precalc would have been.

Instead if a science his senior year, he took culinary arts. Great decision.

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I do not understand why so many recommend calculus for all. It’s just not necessary. Stats is far more useful in many majors or just for understanding things in life. My daughter’s friends are working their butts off in AP Calc, just to get a low B. Meanwhile, she’s sailing through AP Stats.

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This is what I am saying. I guess it would be different if she was trying to go to an extremely selective (academic) school to major in pre med. I hate that the kids are pressured to suffer through something that isn’t relevant to their goals!

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For STEM majors or everyone is selective schools or bust. That’s why.

Too much stress out there.

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Here are my thoughts…

  • My kid has your kid’s profile. Dyscalculia is a bear. For those reading this who haven’t heard about this LD, it is akin to Dyslexia. Another common comorbitity is Dysgraphia. My kid is blessed with it all! Almost forgot to mention the ADHD. And therein lies their brilliance. She took Algebra I, II and Stats. She also had an LD after school tutor to help her. At her HS there was a class called Conceptual Physics and that took care of that. I believe she also took some environmental science class. She took ASL in HS because she had the LDs and they offered that to those kids. So that worked for her foreign language requirement. She BOMBED the SAT. And that was even after spending money on a prep program for learning differences. So having score optional schools was a relief!
    -CSU schools have the BFA MT programs. UC Irvine has a program but you start as a non-audition drama major then audition the second year for the Music Theater program. There are differences between Musical Theater and Music Theater. Different curriculum. The other UC schools we researched are straight theater with an annual musical thrown into the mix. Kid has a friend at Irvine there and says the program is all right. The CalState schools are Fullerton, Chico, San Bernardino, a couple of others maybe? SDSU has an MFA program. Maybe some have been added the past year.
  • She went through the audition process and got into a couple of private NY schools, waitlist for BoCo, and the CA schools. She chose the BFA program at Chico. Which is my alma mater and I SWEAR I did not influence this decision. But I was sure happy and visits to see her are a delight. She is thriving!
  • IMO It is VERY important to look into the philosophy of the school’s program along with the curriculum. My kid really looked into this. And also check into the housing prospects for your student after freshman year. At my kid’s university, the off campus housing rents are LESS than the on campus housing. Other locations it is the exact opposite.
  • The kid also cast a wide net and applied to music programs with vocal emphasis and was accepted to a couple. There are several ways to get to the main goal.
  • She is in her second semester and is thriving!!! I came to these boards to look into some summer stock stuff and ran across your post. I hope this helps a bit!