It probably depends on the school? There are schools that have 20-25% of the high school class taking MV as seniors. Each of my children has attended college with students from many different schools like this. In this situation, qualifying for it and not taking it when a plethora of similarly qualified students do could be a small red flag for the most elite 10-15 universities. Yes, even for humanities majors, the top students take MV at these high schools. Best practice for those targeting the very top is to challenge oneself in all areas, especially those that are not favorite subjects.
Just one school, but my S24 went to a HS with a strong reputation for STEM, and where a decent percentage of kids (including my S24) did BC as juniors and MVC, Diffy Q, and/or LA as seniors. A few kids (not my S24) were even more advanced than that and started on Proofs.
I think it is fair to say the kids who ended up specifically going to a place like MIT, CMU for CS, and so on, ended up being drawn from the most advanced couple groups of math kids. But otherwise, the kids going to Ivies and Ivy+, the most selective few LACs, and so on included plenty of kids who did not go beyond Calc.
Of course they usually had other things that stood out, including some recruited athletes and legacies, but also outstanding visual and/or performing artists, and so on. But they were not all in the most advanced math classes, and definitely not all the advanced math class kids went to such colleges.
1 Like