JC vs Cal State vs UC for pre-college classes

Applying to College
1

My son is in 3rd grade, and he’s pretty good at math.

He has studied algebra, geometry, trig, and right now we’re working through my old college calculus text book. My estimate is that he will master the equivalent of the first year of college Calculus (from my old Berkeley Math 1A/1B curriculum) around the end of this year.

(Lest anyone worry about my son, we only do about 2 hours of extra math a week. He’s in the local comp soccer team, and he plays rec basketball and futsal in the winter and spring. He also plays too much computer game.)

He’ll be 10 summer next year (when he’ll be between 4th and 5th grade), and I think that would be a good time to start letting him take summer classes at a local college. I can continue to teach him math (and other sciences) myself, but I think it’s important to expose him to a college lecture setting, and I would like to establish his bona fide in an impartial setting. I think it’ll be a reasonable assumption that he will continue to take summer classes at local colleges all through grade school and high school.

It’s not likely that he’ll actually major in math when he ultimately attends college. He likes math, but he’s just as interested in half a dozen other subjects.

So I have a few questions about this:

  1. For the purpose of ultimately applying to elite and highly selective colleges, does it matter whether my son takes his classes at a JC, a Cal State, or an UC? The JC is 10 minutes away, the Cal State 25 minutes, and the UC 45 minutes.

  2. My son should be able to handle lower division math classes, but I don’t think he’s ready to tackle proof-heavy upper division classes. Given that he’s starting at the end of 4th grade, and he will have 6 or 7 summers’ worth of college classes before apply to college, is it important for him to progress through lower division math classes into upper division in order to show progress in the subject?

  3. Would it be beneficial for the purpose of college application to show focus (and take more math classes) or breadth( and take classes in other science disciplines)? I haven’t taught him to program yet (that will be this summer), but I think he might have some aptitude there too.

  4. Is it important for my son to participate in something like the Math Olympiads? I don’t know if participation in these kinds of competitions is tied to his school. His small private grade school doesn’t offer anything like that, and is this something we will need to consider when we look at high schools?

Thanks for any advice and recommendations.

2

JC

3

Community college in California is fine for lower division math courses.

Typical courses are:

Calculus 1
Calculus 2
Calculus 3 / multivariable calculus
Linear algebra
Differential equations
Discrete math
Introductory statistics (non calculus)
Introductory statistics (calculus based, preferable but very rare in community colleges)

Quarter system colleges would have a four quarter sequence of calculus.

Some introduction to proof techniques may be in discrete math and linear algebra, or in honors courses if offered. Perhaps a logic course in philosophy may help.

Here is a math prodigy who started at East Los Angeles College (a community college) at age 8 and transferred to UCLA as a math major at age 12: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/at-just-14-ucla-math-student-moshe-229359

4

Oh gosh, a fellow UCB alum. Go Bears!

My son is only 9, so I am not too worried about his inability to do mathematical proofs. I think I can reasonably hope that those skills will develop as he gets older. I have no interest in my son entering college over-early, so I have time to wait.

Anyway, I think my question really boils down to this:

  • When he will apply to elite or highly selective colleges, will an admissions officer look at an A from a JC differently from an A from a Cal State or an UC, since it's easier to get an A in a JC? Or will my son's age trump other considerations?
5

It is probably not a big consideration which type of college it is that he takes college math courses at while in high school or earlier. Of course, if he gets to the point of wanting to take upper division college math courses while in high school, he will have to take them at a four year school. But doing the lower division college math courses at a community college should be fine, and the commuting time differences and cost differences are significantly in its favor for you.

If the “highly selective colleges” include UCs (some of which are considered elite in math and/or related subjects like CS, economics, physics, engineering, etc.), they should be familiar with community college course work and articulation with their own courses (see http://www.assist.org ). Note, however, that UCs do want frosh applicants to have completed an actual geometry course. This is different from other high school level math courses which can be validated with more advanced courses (e.g. precalculus or calculus validates algebra 1 and algebra 2). CSUs allow precalculus or calculus to validate all high school level math courses. See:

http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/quick-reference-2018.pdf (page 16-18)
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files/csu-uc-a-g-comparison-matrix.pdf

6

@ElenaParent has a 15 year old math major at Berkeley, perhaps she can offer an opinion.

7

@ProfessorPlum168 “@ElenaParent has a 15 year old math major at Berkeley, perhaps she can offer an opinion.” - thank you for referencing!
@joe6pack Your boy sounds very much like my son, who turned 16 a week ago and is now a Senior at Berkeley, math major.

If he eventually aims at Berkeley to get his Bachelor, here is my advice: Make sure he does have “Geometry” on his eventual high school transcript. Yes, mine “officially” took this course when he was I think 7 (stuff is blurred at this point), and of course he knew the material before that, but we were lucky to be able to get that course on his official high school transcript. To your question as to where to take the next set of courses: I’d go for JC. Two reasons: it is closer to you, and Berkeley (as well as many other places will accept these credits).

Here is why I’d recommend Berkeley (and not say Princeton or MIT or whatever) as the place to bet a bachelor for your young mathematician. It is an absolutely excellent school with math department ranked #2 in the country (spot tied with Stanford and MIT). It is THE most flexible one I know. It accepts all good stuff you bring in: valid courses form accredited Community Colleges, valid courses from accredited 4-year Universities, and even AP Calculus BC (with the score of 5) (the last one replaces first two requirements for graduation with math major). Depending on the path you choose, your son will be able to come as a Freshman or as a Junior, but his graduation date may not be affected much by how he is called at the moment of admission. Our experience shows that you can get admitted (after high school) as a Freshman, and then, when all the prior credits from JCs, CC, other 4-year universities clicks through (this takes a good portion of the first semester at Berkeley, for an out of state people like us, faster for in-state), you can be counted as a Senior, and be well situated to graduate in 3 or 4 semesters total. And then go for PhD or whatnot. I am not aware of any other excellent math place that would allow you to do that. Most of the places will force you to retake everything including Calc 1, which would have been very boring for my son, since he got credit for that one about 7 years ago or more, and it seems will be very boring for your son as well.

Now, you are writing about 6-7 summers worth of classes. Why summers only? Can’t he take his classes at Community College during school year, and you count it towards his “home schooling”?

“Would it be beneficial for the purpose of college application to show focus (and take more math classes) or breadth?”. Since I am recommending Berkeley - the answer is obvious. Go see the admission requirements for the UC system. You will find “A-G list” You have to have this list full to have a good change to be admitted, no matter how great mathematician you are.

" Is it important for my son to participate in something like the Math Olympiads?" No idea. Mine was doing the “math Circle” since I do not remember how young, and then was leading his team in competitions - it was a pretty average team, but he felt he was obligated to it, because when he just came, big kids there helped him a lot, so now, he thought, it was his turn to help (and he was still younger than many on the team). He did put this info into his application, of course. But, about age. I think for my son, his age hurt him in admissions, instead of helping.

One more thing: listen to ucbalumnus. He knows the system forward and backward, he knows every math course at Berkeley and probably in a few other places. He was able to give me advice about my son a year ago, and all his predictions (what course can be counted as what) were spot on.