My son is finishing up his 9th grade and is interested in attending a top school for physics. He’s taking all the math and science his high school offers, but some of his peers jumped ahead one year in math before entering high school by taking exams, outside classes, etc. He will take AP calculus BC as a senior, while some of his peers will take it as a junior and then take college-level math in a local community college when they are seniors. Neither he nor we know of this possibility in middle school and so were in the dark until he got to high school.
So my question is whether he’s already ruled out for a top 5 or 10 school already, e.g., some of the ivies or top technical schools? What things and opportunities should he be looking out for going forward?
Calculus BC as a senior is fine. Obviously, he should take physics (and chemistry and biology) in high school.
The rest should be the typical college-prep curriculum (4 years English, 3-4 history and social studies, foreign language to level 3 or 4, art or music; choose advanced-level (AP, college, etc.) courses as appropriate) plus electives of interest.
Also, lots of schools are good for physics majors but are not in the top 5-10 for prestige or selectivity.
Colleges evaluate each student in the context of what is available at their high school. As long as he has maximized all of his possibilities, he’ll be fine. When we toured MIT years ago, the admissions counselor who gave the info session did say to never go without math, even if you had to get creative. But, as long as he’s taking math throughout he’ll be fine. S ended up with a double major in econ & math and did fine without being at an Ivy or top 10 school.
OTOH, Geometry is an incredibly easy course to take over the summer, if he has that opportunity. My S did it and jumped ahead, so he took Calc BC junior year and Multivariable Calc senior year, with three other kids.
But doing Calc AB or BC in his senior year will still get him into a first-rate science school.
In our high school, several kids took Trig/PreCalc over the summer so they could take Calc BC as juniors. There ended up being enough of them that they offered a linear algebra class senior year. But really thousands of kids get into top science kids with just AP Calc and a handful get in with only pre-calc.
What your son really wants is a strong math base not necessarily the “highest” math level. If he builds the base, while “only” reaching Calc BC, that’s more than enough. What you do NOT want is to rush your son through the math coursework to get to that “highest” level if it sacrifices the strong math background. So take a good (critical) look at his math, if he catches on and understands thoroughly math concepts, then summer school may be an option. You have to look beyond grades to see how well he has internalized the math.
I’ve known kids who have been rushed and the cracks often show up in Calc BC. They often have a hard time when they reach college with MVC.
Last, you may be surprised at what schools are good for physics. They aren’t necessarily all top 5, 10 or those with single digit acceptance rates. If that’s your universe of colleges, look further.
He shouldl be just fine with AB/BC calc. My son is just about to graduate with his EE masters and I asked last week what he would have done differently to prepare himself for a STEM major. He wished he would have taken a couple of liberal arts requirements (like art or a global requirement) over the summers that would have fulfilled his college requirement and freed up his time for those intense semesters. You can get a feel from the colleges he is interested in to see if they allow outside credits to count toward satisfying gen ed requirements.