<p>As a high school sophomore this fall, I will be taking AP Calculus BC for math. So after that, I have just about used up all of the math classes available at my school. For my junior and senior years, I would like to take math like muli-varible calc, etc…at a local university. Has anyone ever done this before? How did you make the time to take the class (was it during school, in the evening, etc.)? Also, how did you approach the university and apply for the class? Thanks.</p>
<p>Marite is the one you need to answer this. Her son took math classes at Harvard. You might look into summer session at a local college after this summer as well.</p>
<p>Punkette:</p>
<p>Good job!</p>
<p>How you go about taking more math courses depends partly on whether your high school has some formal arrangement with a local college, whether the college offers evening classes or only daytime classes, whether your high school will allow you to go off campus to take classes, reduce your workload by one course or not, etc…</p>
<p>If you take daytime classes, the high school schedule will have to be modified to allow you to do so because high schools and colleges usually have different schedules (ours rotates). And the distance would have to be reasonable. You may have to audit the class for high school credit, as my S did; in that case, the prof will have to agree to your sitting in the class, to give you the same homework and tests as regularly enrolled students, and to grade your work. Then the grade will have to be sent to the high school so it can be recorded on your transcript. My S’s college grades were turned into Passes and not counted in his high school GPA. If your school has an arrangement with a local college, however, your college grade may be recorded in your transcript with added weighting (our school does not weight grades). </p>
<p>How to approach the college or prof? If your school has a formal arrangement with the college, your GC can handle this. If not, then you will have to do the work yourself, provided, of course, your school is willing to go along with your plans. Our school has an arrangement for taking evening classes as Harvard, but not for auditing daytime classes. My S looked up the Harvard catalog online and contacted profs by email to ask permission to audit. Then he worked out a schedule with his GC.This entailed an awful lot of “guided study” periods on his transcript as the two schedules did not mesh. But somehow, it worked. </p>
<p>Another way to go is distance learning courses. The best known is EPGY which originates from Stanford University. Look it up on the Stanford website. It is pricey, but I’m told it’s good. It covers some math beyond multivariable and linear algebra. Others have suggested distance courses through the University of Texas at Austin, which is less pricey. More and more universities are adding distance learning courses, so it may be worth your while doing some investigating. If you look up catalogs now, beware that class offerings and classtimes may change next year. So contact profs to make sure when their classes are held.</p>
<p>Good luck and have fun!</p>
<p>EPGY’s price to schools is much less than the sticker price on the website. OP may want to talk with guidance at her school to see if they would be willing to offer EPGY courses to all their qualifying students.</p>
<p>MY daughter took multivariable calculus at a local state university when she was a high school junior.</p>
<p>In her case, the university had a procedure for enrolling high school students as non-degree students, which included getting some note from her high school that she was prepared for this class. The class itself was at 6pm, so it did not interfere with high school. It was a state university, so tuition was not that high. She could have done the same thing at a local community college, or a local private college. Anyplace that caters to working students, and therefore has courses in the evenings, and permits high school non-degree students.</p>
<p>So the procedure would be: 1) find a local college that has a course you can take, logistically; 2) contact that college to find out what you have to do to register for it; 3) contact your school about their part in enabling your enroillment in the college course.</p>
<p>Alternatively, the University of Missouri at Columbia has a program offering self-study courses for remote learners. It is not expensive. I don’t know for a fact that they offer multivariable claculus, but as this is a common course it wouldn’t surprise me.</p>
<p>The system is different in different states and school districts. Sometimes the school will pay for the university class, sometimes it will just allow you take it; some universities do not allow non-matriculated students into classes; and sometimes everything is fine with the university, but the school will not grant credits… You will have to find out how it is in your particular district.</p>
<p>BTW, EPGY has pretty good finaid system… but some schools do not grant credit for EPGY classes.</p>
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<p>There are hundreds of examples each year around the country of young people who take post-calculus math classes while they are still high school students. I recently met a local mother whose daughter is a first-year student at MIT. She finished AP calculus BC as a senior, and she writes home to her mother that most of her classmates had a lot more mathematics before going off to MIT. </p>
<p>In a few states there are well-established programs for young people to study math at a faster pace than the usual high school curriculum, for example the [University</a> of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program](<a href=“http://www.itcep.umn.edu/umtymp/]University”>http://www.itcep.umn.edu/umtymp/). In many other places, students simply approach a local community college, or a local state university, and ask to enroll in math courses one class at a time, sometimes with their school district’s blessing and assistance and sometimes entirely on their own. There are a few summer programs too that offer very advanced math, for example [MathCamp[/url</a>]. As other participants in this thread have already commented, the [url=<a href=“http://epgy.stanford.edu%5DEPGY%5B/url”>http://epgy.stanford.edu]EPGY[/url</a>] distance learning courses are another possibility for taking advanced math courses, and they are less expensive than first appears both because of generous financial aid to individuals and steep discounts for school-based programs. </p>
<p>You could even self-study. You wouldn’t necessarily get “credit” for self-study, but you could mention what you learned in application essays or an application interview, to show that you were maximizing your local learning opportunities. Just find a library with some math books you don’t understand, and keep reading them and doing exercises until you do understand them. Group theory is rather accessible to someone with a high school math background, but is very rarely studied until upper-division undergraduate classes by most math majors. </p>
<p>Another really good idea for someone as advanced in math as you are is to get involved in the [url=<a href=“http://www.unl.edu/amc/index.html]American”>http://www.unl.edu/amc/index.html]American</a> Mathematics Competitions](<a href=“http://www.mathcamp.org/]MathCamp[/url”>http://www.mathcamp.org/) programs (which are noteworthy to many college admission officers, and good education anyway) and in the [Art</a> of Problem Solving Web site](<a href=“http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/index.php]Art”>http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Forum/index.php). You’ll meet other math-liking young people that way, and learn more specific tips about how to learn more math before you leave high school. </p>
<p>Hope this helps! Good luck in your studies.</p>