Mostly, what Math class you took/are taking. Is Calc AB the minimum?
By no stretch of the imagination. While some level of calculus (not necessarily AP) is common, pre-calc is also common. Harvard has many, many students who are taking calculus for the first time here.
As with anything else, the expectation is that the student-athlete will have the necessary HS academic background to succeed in college just in case s/he is no longer able to play the sport.
Depends on the school and program. One of my current student-athlete’s schools specifically said Calculus (though didn’t specify the level)
For athletic recruits in the Ivys, I would imagine that most have already been asked to submit their senior schedule as part of the admissions pre read. I would imagine if there was an issue with the rigor of the senior course load it would have been highlighted as part of that process.
For HYPS, no. If an athlete took APs in English, History and Science, had a 4.0 GPA, and had good SAT/ACT scores then taking precal during senior year should be sufficient.
The question of Calc AP in a vacuum is impossible to answer. As Ohiodad stated the real issue is “rigor of senior schedule,” which is dependent on the other classes you are taking and the academic reputation of the HS. For example, several notable prep schools do not offer courses that are designated “AP” but no college doubts that rigor of their senior schedule.
For Ivy, I don’t think Calc AB would generally be required. Depending on the rest of your schedule and a lot of other factors (your Academic Index, the AI of others on the team in your recruiting class, etc).
I’ve found that for other highly selective schools (Amherst, Pomona, etc.) it might be. In today’s world, many of the Ivies focus on winning in sports and will cut some corners on academics. But at Amherst, Pomona, etc. the coaches do not get much slack, the recruit needs to be very strong on all academic criteria.
And yes, as stated above, at Ivy and all “most selective” schools, you’ll need to submit your senior schedule as part of the pre-read. This should be done during the summer before your senior year.
That’s what I did. My schedule was approved at every Ivy and peer school. But I submitted a very aggressive AP loaded senior year schedule, including AP Calc AB. I probably could have negotiated some of those classes away, but I was too worried about how that would look.
Within the engineering discipline AP Calc AB is a definite plus and at Princeton at least AP Calc BC is preferred. My son took AP Calc AB but still opted to take the Calc 1 class at Princeton as it was much more in depth than what he learned in high school. AB students may not need either of these depending on their intended area of concentration. Math majors (at Princeton) will need to start with much more advanced preparation than these two AP’s if they hope to be successful within that department. My thought would be your level of preparation and testing in high school needs to correspond to your intended major.
Thanks for the input everyone! I asked question assuming that rest of senior year schedule would be of suitable rigor, but was just curious about what math recruits were ending their HS careers with. Seems like there is a range, but as always, the more rigorous the better.
As a footnote, one coach from the Claremont Colleges told me Calc was pretty much “required.” Not sure about the Ivies, and others have more experience. It was enough to get me to push my kids to Calc AB.
I’m applying to the more math/science oriented schools. For one of them (Caltech) Calculus is a must-have, and for other math/science schools, I’m pretty sure they want their freshmen entering to have either taken calculus or to be taking calculus. My senior year (this year), I’m taking Adv. Differential Equations and Linear Algebra… But I’m not taking an advanced history, like I might consider for some Ivies.
Calculus definitely isn’t the minimum, although it depends what your desired major is. I go to the ILR school at Cornell and play football here and didn’t even take pre calc in high school (two years of stats). Also a friend of mine didn’t take calc and is studying Econ here