<p>An irrelevant but still provocative anecdote: my D entered senior year of high school planning to never take a Math class other than Stats in college. Calc BC turned her into a Math major. Go figure. (I still can’t.)</p>
<p>calmom,</p>
<p>MIT wants students to take the most demanding courses AVAILABLE to them. The fact that your daughter’s school doesn’t offer calculus would not be held against her when applying to MIT. Certainly mastering the material to which you are exposed (and obtaining as close to straight A’s as possible) is much more important than taking a specific number of AP courses (because your school may not offer as many as another school). If many of the top students students from such a school take calculus from a community college and this option is not cost-prohibitive, then MIT might expect an applicant to use this option.</p>
<p>There is a tie-in to this thread and a couple earlier ones noting the decrease of the enrollment of Blacks at UCLA. </p>
<p>For those who missed it, a comparison was made between the racial profile of the new frosh class at UCLA and the class enrolling in 1985. As I recall, the percentage of Blacks now is less than half of what it was back then.</p>
<p>Comparing the other groups, the enrollment of Whites is also down (more in # but as a lower % than Blacks), of Latinos the same and Asians way up.</p>
<p>Here’s what I think has happened. There has been a large influx of Asians into Southern California in the interim. Proportionally more of these folks stress academic achievement and good study habits than other groups. </p>
<p>This really shows up in the math area. Asians dominate math competitions here in disproportionate numbers. One local school district with a large Asian population here had to start offering Geometry classes to their 7th graders because so many parents were pulling their kids out into private schools that offered accelerated math.</p>
<p>You have a huge demographic change here where the newbies achieve discretionally in math. You have all the other groups at basically the same achievement level. Hence, the bar is raised for admissions to UCLA. But its much more of a math thing and much less of a race thing. Quite a few students admitted in 1985 would not be admitted today.</p>
<p>I cant speak for other areas of the country, but to be academically competitive out here, your kids are going to have to think pretty hard about taking more math in high school than you did.</p>
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<p>Not true. Many AP courses are regarded as “jokes” by colleges. Especially those that serve as substitutes for the more “heavyweight” courses in those areas.</p>
<p>AP Stat happens to be one of them. While Calc BC is well regarded by all universities, our state colleges do not even offer college credit for AP Stat. Same thing goes for AP Environmental Science. While AP Bio is considered one of the most rigorous, if not the most rigorous of AP’s, many colleges don’t give credit for Env. Sci. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, many high schools - searching for a way to up their US News ranking - are adding these “qustionable” courses. Fortunately, the colleges know which of the courses are true equivalents of college work.</p>
<p>Dadguy, you may be right about the math focus and decline in black enrollment. But I am not at all sure that the heavy math emphasis is such a good thing. My kids both spent time overseas in high school in countries where math education was far better than in the US; both of them were asked to take over or lead an English class; and both ran into problems when they tried to encourage class participation and creativiity. My son wanted to play the sort of interactive games that were a staple of his foreign-language instruction; my daughter asked her students to draw a picture of the scene depicted in a passage in an English book they had been asked to learn. Their students were dumbfounded – in my daughter’s situation, they were also panic-stricken, tremendously worried about their grade. The students had learned to listen, but not question; they had learned that there was one right answer to everything and that the source of information was the teacher.</p>
<p>The reason I am not encouraging my daughter to pursue math is that she never seems to have had the comfort level needed to get creative with it. If I tried to work with her, she never wanted to learn the underlying concepts and discover principles on her own - she wanted to be given a formula and memorize it. She has a great memory so her grades were fine, but she didn’t have the “why” of it. My son was different - he intuited math, and he often used strategies that were different than the teacher provided, but often also more elegant in approach – even if it did take me a while to figure out what he was doing. He took calculus in high school and never went to class, never opened his text book, and always had A’s. He would just show up for exams and, in his words, “invent” his own calculus to solve whatever problem he was given. To him everything math was easy and obvious – so of course he could go as far as he wants in math. But he doesn’t like to study math because he finds it boring – I assume because he doesn’t like to waste time working out all the problem sets. I have a sense of what it’s like for him because in high school I struggled a lot with trigonometric concepts, and then one day I “got it” and it suddenly became absolutely clear to me – and from then on I was bored with homework too. There just doesn’t seem to be a point to working out multiple problems when you already know how to do them – in that setting you want to move on. </p>
<p>So yes – more math in high school produces students prepared to go immediately into even higher math and sciences in college: but can they think independently? All this emphasis on math means a de-emphasis on study of the humanities & social sciences where there are no simple answers, where students are rewarded for fresh ideas. </p>
<p>Math doesn’t have to be taught in a rigid fashion – my son had one good math teacher in high school who was very gifted, and always taught the students multiple approaches for solving the same type of problem, and encouraged the students to do what they were most comfortable with, working individually with them as needed to help them see and understand what they were doing. But of course that was only one teacher, and there aren’t many like him in the public schools. </p>
<p>When people post that the high-math (through calculus) route is needed to get into top colleges, I see evidence of the one-track thinking I worry about. They can’t seem to see the value of alternate routes – they have turned the concept of “calculus was good for me” into “everybody must have calculus”.</p>
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<p>I haven’t found this to be true. In my son’s school - most of the top kids (60 - 100 or so) take AP Calc, the AP Sciences (Bio, Chem, Physics), as well as the AP Histories (World, European, American, Government), AP Languages (French/Spanish/Italian/German/Latin/etc), AP Language and Literature, as well as AP Music Theory/Art or Art History/etc. and other electives AP Micro and Macro Econ and AP Computer Science. They also seem to find time to squeeze in Comparitive Religions, Film, etc. Most don’t feel they have to make a choice between math/science and the humanities.</p>
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<p>But this arguments assumes that HS studies in the humanities and social sciences do in fact provoke independent thinking. I have severe doubts about this claim. </p>
<p>The classes that I had to memorize the most for were without a doubt things like history, foreign languages, etc. For the most part, you were either right or wrong in these classes, there was no in between, no “come up with your own answer” mentality. Aside from a limited number of papers (because most papers had right and wrong answers as well), my english classes were also the same way. Read a story, answer multiple choice questions about it, there is no independent thinking in that. At least in my math/science classes there were multiple approaches to nearly every problem and there were a few amount of open ended questions that allowed for independent thinking.</p>
<p>I brought up UCLA to make the point that the higher Math is becoming more mandatory on an unoffical basis at least because over the past 20 years, the applicant pool has become more proficient in it. This may not apply to other schools, but I think it does to this one.</p>
<p>I second what has been said before, of the people who do well in math, there are very few who don’t so well in most other subjects. Math achievement does not preclude analytic thinking in other subjects. Calculus is not just a subject for gifted students. A normally bright kid with good study habits can also do quite well with it. Unless you think the Asian (or Asian-Anerican) kids are somehow born with a calculus gene that other kids just don’t have.</p>
<p>dadguy:</p>
<p>you may be on to something…the UC gpa is the #1 criteria for admission to all the schools, and it receives bonus points for honors courses beyond Alg II. Thus, precalc and calc are bonus point classes, which boost the ‘UC gpa’ and the calculation for elc (which is uncapped).</p>
<p>Dadguy (and anyone who could echo the original post in this thread) – I haven’t read through the whole thread to see if this has already been recommended, so please excuse me if this is redundant. You should read (or look into reading) <em>Innumeracy</em> by John Allen Paulos. From the look of your original post, you might really appreciate his standpoint.</p>
<p>I too havent read the whole thread but i just wanted to add that I think it’s great for students to take Calc in HS as long as they are really understanding it. There is a huge difference between being able to punch numbers and actually understanding whats going on.</p>
<p>I haven’t read this entire thread, but thought my D’s story fits in here. She had a math tutor in 6th and 7th grades because I thought she needed it–devoping mathphobia. She didn’t like math thereafter too much–cruddy, mean teacher for geometry in 10th grade, but wonderful teacher for algebra in 11th. We thought that was it for math. Her SAT in math was average: 550.</p>
<p>Flash forward to sophomore year of college and a change of major to biology. She took college trig, algebra, calculus, and statistics and got A’s in all four classes! Then she started tutoring junior high and high school students in math last year. It still is amazing to me…</p>
<p>bookiemom, what a great accomplishment for your daughter! If you read the thread about kids needing remedial help, I think it shows that many kids just aren’t taught well in the lower grades. I’m sure your daughter is quite capable of pursuing more math – she just never had a teacher who could explain it to her before. Good for her!!!</p>
<p>Thanks for the praise, sjmom. We were very lucky in our choice of tutor–a lovely young woman with degrees in both math and violin performance. She tutored my D in math and also gave her private violin lessons! She really worked on building up her confidence in math too, although that didn’t seem to quite kick in till the college classes somehow.</p>
<p>After a bit of mischief in freshman year, 
I was taken off the higher math track and not allowed to proceed to Calculus in high school. I finished the lower track course before the end of November. I think I read novels during that period for the rest of the year. </p>
<p>I took Calculus in the Engineering school at university, even though it wasn’t required. I’m not sure what value it added. It did teach me 1) Slide rules are complicated and 2) many engineers do not have to go to class in order to ace their exams.</p>
<p>Both of my sons took Calculus in high school, one as a senior, one as a junior. Neither knocked the socks off the course but they both did well enough without too much strain. It wasn’t a breeze, but managing Calc did add to their overall Math confidence, good SAT results and good university Maths performance. </p>
<p>I’m in favor of letting any willing student into high school Calculus classes. I really dislike the snobbish attitude of barring ‘C’ Algebra Trig students (boys) from taking high school Calculus. Let those boys get a ‘C’ in Calculus for heaven’s sake. Math maniacs contribute to mathophobia when they add that layer of snobbishness on to the subject. I wish they would get over themselves in that regard.</p>
<p>YES X 1,000,000.</p>
<p>Before Calculus, I’d never made a C in my life. All A’s in non honrs and most honrs class, a few B’s in math and science honors. AP Calc rolls around and I get a B first semester. 2nd semester rolls around, and I get really sick/swamped with college apps and I dont even pass. I still get a C on the year, but my moma nd grandparents dont understand how yearly averages work so that when I tell them my 68 4th qtr is just a small part of my total average and that I still have about a 78 on the year, they dont get it at all. It didnt have any real bearing on my future, it was just a lot of unneeded stress.</p>
<p>Calculus is important. Consider the University of Washington. 80% of students who took calculus in high school graduate in 4 years. These students improve graduation rates. They also dont need remedial math in college. I think almost 30% of incoming students needed remedial math last year. So the University Washington can save resources if it reduces the need for remedial math.</p>
<p>Something else must be learned by students taking calculus or it wouldnt impact graduation rates at the University of Washington so directly.</p>
<p>Correlation doesn’t equal causation.</p>
<p>I dont believe Calculus is actually teaching them anything they’re directly applying to succeeding in college. I bet the correlation is due to the fact that the students placing into calculus are smarter in the first place. Doesn’t mean its still not a waste of time for syudents not seeking an engineering or other math-centric degree.</p>