<p>Looking for advice… I’m a junior and taking BC Calculus right now. I had an A last semester, and the teacher’s supposed to be good for getting you a 5 on the exam. The only thing is, I’m incredibly ridiculously busy. I’m taking seven APs and I play a varsity sport plus other ECs that I’m really involved in too. </p>
<p>So I really want to drop back into AB Calculus. I don’t like math, never plan on doing anything with math in my life. And colleges don’t go for the well-rounded people anymore, so what’s the point in showing them I’m good at math if I need to be showing them I have good leadership instead?</p>
<p>I wish I’d thought of this last year and just signed up for AB instead of BC. Now my main worry is that it’ll look bad that I dropped from BC into AB, like I couldn’t handle the workload. I mean, I can, but I would have more time to focus on the things that are actually important to me if I weren’t taking BC. Will it look bad if I switch now? I did make an A last semester, which they will be able to see.</p>
<p>All the college books I read have discouraged being an “all-rounder”…apparently now you’re supposed to be a prodigy at one thing instead.</p>
<p>Wish I’d gotten the memo back in eighth grade.</p>
<p>i think what colleges might not want is the jack-of-all-trades who does everything but isn’t really good at what he does. that’s different from being well-rounded.</p>
<p>At this point, that would just be a waste of time because the first semester of BC encompasses all of AB.</p>
<p>Efficiency. You just got to be on top of your game, and spend less time chatting with friends or not utilizing your time. </p>
<p>In my opinion, stick with BC, math is one of the easier classes to excel at without studying a lot (just memorizing a few theorems or formulas)</p>
<p>Well, the AB at our school is only about two or three weeks behind us at this point, but they don’t go as in depth, and they have a lot less homework.</p>
<p>You’re right though…I mean with math you either know it or you don’t</p>
<p>does your teacher actually require you to do the hw?</p>
<p>Sadly yes. And i’m always in her bad books for doing like 15/16 of the problems. “Where’s number 64? You didn’t do number 64? Oh, I see. Where’s your answer? You need to show more work.”</p>
<p>AG! If I switched into AB I’d have the psycho lady who talks to herself…but that at least sounds fun!</p>
<p>Math is just so…uninspiring. To me, anyway. I wish we didn’t have core requirements, because math stopped being practical with Geometry back in middle school.</p>
<p>The redundancy of material isn’t worth it, in my opinion. If you drop out, like I said, you won’t be learning anything new at all. And when you take BC senior year, you will essentially re-review all of the AB material the first semester.</p>
<p>Are you spending significant time to get an A? It sounds to me like you want to take it easy in math. Sounds good, and you could probably justify it with your other 6 AP classes/work load. But it’d be better just to suck it up for another few months and get it over with.</p>
<p>Oh, I wouldn’t take BC senior year. Most juniors that take AP Calculus go on to take AP Stats the next year.</p>
<p>I have a friend who dropped from AB Calc to Discrete Math (aka Honors Counting) and says it’s the best thing she ever did with her life. Then again, she wasn’t a math person at all.</p>
<p>I think I’ll just stick with it. AB would be easier, but not so much easier that I’d suddenly have hours of free time. And then I’d have to deal with my parents thinking I can’t handle my work at school, and people asking “But why did you switch into AB if you were doing fine in BC?”</p>
<p>Thanks for all the suggestions =)</p>
<p>If you stick through BC and get a 5 on the exam you’ll get out of two classes instead of one. That means once in college you’ll get to take another fun class instead, make studying abroad easier, or graduating early if you want (my course to save $10,000).</p>
<p>lol i didn’t know the AB/BC thing was so important. my friend took AB calc all the way and still got into HYP</p>
<p>it really doesnt make a big diff. bc isnt that bad, especially 2nd semester</p>
<p>It’s really not that important. But at this point, the OP has basically already taken AB calculus (it’s the first semester of BC), so it’d just be counter-productive to drop out of BC. And math isn’t really a class that takes a lot of time to study for, it’s mostly about concepts and not making mistakes.</p>