Thank you for reviving this interesting thread @lauramts.
I just came across the UGA admissions blog and David Graves, the UGA Director of Admissions, attempts to answer - at least for UGA - the “enough rigor” question commented on by the last several handfuls of comments in a blog post back in April 24:
He dispels the myth of class rank and addresses sufficiency of rigor and the need for a balanced life and personal well being.
Full disclosure, I found the above link as a sidelink off of the following UGA blog post touting the 2024 admit GPA, test scores, and # of APs / IB / DE courses taken:
Both blog posts were made by Director Graves, but they seem to be contradictory.
@MidwestPack thanks so much for sharing this article! (so refreshing to read a well-written blog post) This community is so helpful for my mental health
I wish my son took AP Stats instead of AP Calc BC as he’s not going into a hard science field. Honestly I think stats should be a more emphasized and valued course since it is more useful in everyday life as well as in a much broader array of natural and social sciences (literally any field in which there is quantitative research).
However, this is sometimes a guess as to what level of statistics the student will need. For some students, introductory level statistics in college or AP statistics will be sufficient. But some other students may need a more in-depth or advanced level of statistics, which typically has a prerequisite of calculus.
I completely agree that in the modern world, Stats should be seen as basically a core general requirement for professionals.
My personal preference, though, is to keep going with main sequence math year by year until you are done.
So, if you know you will never do Calc, then choosing AP Stats instead is fine.
But if you eventually want to get through Calc 1, aka AB, I’d generally recommend doing it immediately after Trig/Pre-Calculus. If that means doing it in HS, fine, if college, also fine. Same deal with Calc 2, aka BC.
In contrast, with Stats, I think you have more flexibility about when you take it, and what it includes. Again if you are going to stop the main sequence before Calc 1, you can take Stats without Calc, like with AP Stats. If you are going to do through Calc 2, you can instead start with Calc-based Stats. Indeed, sometimes you can also do through Calc 3, aka MVC, and then start with an accelerated class that may do some MVC-based Stats.
But none of this is meant to imply it is somehow a disaster to not follow this advice. I just think it makes it all a little easier to keep progressing through the main sequence rather than stop and then later try to restart.
