How important is AP calc?

<p>I have the choice of taking either ap calc or ap stat next year. I’m really not a math person, and since I’m taking several other ap’s i think stat would be easier for me.</p>

<p>however, i’ve heard that colleges like to see ap calc a lot better than stat. how much of a factor would that be? keep in mind im looking at mostly liberal arts colleges and would major in something not math or science related</p>

<p>My kid is taking AP Calc and is thinking the same as you but some of her friends are taking AP stat. Who knows if it matters.As you can see lots of kids take all the classes have high SATs and still do not get in :frowning:
Take what you want not what you think they want.</p>

<p>I don’t think you need to take AP Calc unless you are interested in a math/science-based major (and you say you’re not). </p>

<p>There are a lot of people (myself included) who opted out of AP Calc for AP Stat or even no math class at all senior year but were still able to get into college.</p>

<p>And not to sound contradictory, it also depends on how competitive the LACs you’re applying to are. If they’re in the top-20 or so, maybe calc would be a good idea.</p>

<p>AP Calculus, although more difficult than AP Statistics, would provide a better foundation for college level mathematics course work. If you think yourself capable of doing even minimally good (a low A) in it, I would encourage you to take AP Calculus.</p>

<p>take both
10 char</p>

<p>College admission decisions in schools that don’t use a formula are a matter of gestalt. What impression does your app make to the interviewer? So it’s impossible to answer your question with a precise answer (eg. "you’ll get a 4.7% boost in your chances of admission) and yet most people would acknowledge that Calculus is seen as the more challenging class. Which means taking it makes your app stronger – by some unquantifiable amount.</p>

<p>Since this is an advice forum, I want to also add 3 bits of (unsolicited) advice. First, learning math is more like learning French than History. You read “The 3 causes of the American Revolution were…” and you immediately comprehend every bit of it. All it will take is a little review before the test and you’ll be able to find the right answers on a multiple-choice test or write an essay contrasting it with the 4 causes of the French Revolution. But in French, you read the vocabulary list just once and you’re going to flunk. It takes practice, lots of it, done almost daily. Math is the same thing. Almost nobody can read a calculus chapter once and be able to apply it; you need to work problem after problem for it to sink in. </p>

<p>The 2nd tip is expectations. In a college level math/science class, a good rule of thumb is to expect to spend 3 hours outside of class doing homework & studying for every hour in class. A typical college class meets 3x a week, so you should expect to spend 9 hours EACH week outside of class studying. If you make this commitment and really do it, studying being quiet time w/o phone calls or listening to music, I think you well earn a good grade in the class even if you’re not a math person.</p>

<p>Lastly is how to study. You just can’t learn math by reading the chapter. You need to work problem after problem, especially the ones you probably hate like word problems, to really learn the subject. Fortunately there is a resource that many people don’t know about; this is the “Problem-Solver” books such as “The Calculus Problem Solver”. The book is only about $20 and is a thick book of problems with fully worked solutions. You turn to the chapter that matches what you’re studying in class, cover up the answers, and start. Check each answer and keep working problems until you’re solving them correctly.</p>

<p>Nine hours a week and an outside workbook may not be what you had in mind, but I promise you that if you do this you will learn the material and get a good grade in the class and on the AP exam.</p>

<p>I think even regular (non AP) Calculus would be preferred by most adcoms to AP Stats. Most of your high school math in freshman through junior years is organized to prepare you for Calculus. In fact, what is now called Math Analysis used to be called Pre-Calculus.</p>

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Hahaha, wow. Prime example of why normal people generally hate this forum.</p>

<p>^ Lol, by those standards I fail miserably. I had a B+ first semester of AP Calc. :P</p>

<p>Oh, and it’s “minimally well”!</p>

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<p>Well said. As is his later advice, though I’d say that in AP Calc AB there’s a 1-2 hour outside of class rule (or, as Cal Newport, author of Study Hacks blog, would put it, 15-50 minutes for each concept studied in class) rather than 3 hours. BC is another beast.</p>

<p>OP, I highly recommend you continue with your math sequence and take Calc. I think Stats, though a valuable foundation for the humanities, should be regarded as an elective rather than a hard math class–it would save kids without resources like CC a lot of heartache come April 1 senior year.</p>