No one from our school takes either Calc before 12th grade. I assume that once in a blue moon some crazy gifted kid with pushy parents manages to make it happen but it certainly isn’t the norm. Our kids are tracked in 6th grade to one of 4 math tracks. Its almost impossible to jump tracks after that. My D was tracked into the 2nd highest so she will only be eligible for AP Calc AB as a senior. She has recently discovered a real love of math and is trying to convince the school to let her self study over the summer and test into BC as a senior. I’m not sure I approve. I don’t see the rush or the need since she doesn’t ever intend to study engineering or any other super math heavy program. But we’ll see if the studying actually happens and go from there. I hate to see her take on more stress.
The math pathway in our district is Algebra 1 (8th), Geometry (9th), Algebra 2 (10th), Pre-Calc (11th), AP Calc (12th).
I really wish I could go back in time and push the kid down a track in math, up a track in social studies. He wanted to make the switch in sophomore year, but then the schedule tetris didn’t work out. He could have done it if he had sacrificed the art class, but how were we to know back then that that cadre of spiteful catty girls would be installed right next to him and make his life miserable?
But I cannot change the past, we can only go forward with what we know now. Next year’s schedule looks good so far. No calc, stats instead.
Yeah. Our school similar to @DCNatFan 's school -
Most popular tests included:
AP Lang - 241 kids
APUSH - 285
AP Euro - 147
AB Calc- 171
BC Calc - 87
Physics 1 - 116
APLit- 128
AP Macro - 88
34 APs total. 947 students too 2213 tests last year.
It’s going to be interesting to see how D does on her own without her pushy parent 
doing her bidding. Honestly, though if I’d heard “this is her track” one more time…
Most of students at our school with pretty rigorous schedules take AP Calc (or the equivalent IB class) during junior year, and a handful do it sophomore year. I felt the same way @ninakatarina about my language-arts and theater-loving D and wished she hadn’t been put on the track to take AP Calc junior year. She hated it. Fortunately, her college only has one quantitative class requirement and she’s meeting it this semester with astronomy! She texted the other day and said, “I don’t ever have to take another math class!”.
@momtogkc, I had to bring the LOR thing up a lot of times before D19 was ready to actually ask, so I hear you. We talked through each teacher, and eventually she went with her gut–APUSH and English. She does well in math and science, but she felt that the teachers just didn’t know her as well as there aren’t discussions or projects in their classes.
I hope English teachers are more likely to know how write . . . coincidentally, D’s English teacher is also annoyed by a lot of kids, but D feels that helps her stand out for not being on the teacher’s bad side!
I opted S19 out of taking honors Algebra 1 in 7th grade (they have to be in accelerated math in 6th grade and test into it). I think it was the right choice for him. He’s good at math, but if he doesn’t like a topic or immediately “get it,” they things can go a little awry (like they did during some trigonometry topics this year). He’s taking AB Calc next year and hopefully will get a good foundation if he ever needs to take additional math.
There seem to be five or six different math tracks in our schools, from the kids who are somehow in calculus in 9th grade to the kids who never get past Algebra 2. My D16 stopped at regular pre-calc.
@DCNatFan & @homerdog – where are you finding that AP data for your kids’ schools? Is that a Naviance thing or something else?
D19 should have finished her Calc AB test within the past hour. I think she’s enjoyed the class, and as a STEM girl seeking to do some complex stuff in college, she should be taking it this year. (She’ll take Calc BC next year, though there is no AP version of the class offered, which is Fine. By. Me.) Her school is reasonably small, so can’t have too many tracks. She was basically “jumped” a grade, IIRC, summer after 8th grade, where the school said that if she took whatever the “normal” 9th grade class was online over the summer, she could place into the “advanced” track. I remember the school basically saying, “don’t tell anyone,” basically because (we think) they didn’t want a bunch of parents demanding that their kids be accelerated. I think there might be 3 or 4 other juniors in her Calc class.
I need to remember to ask her to write thank-you notes to the teachers who wrote LORs for the summer programs she applied to (without success) both because a) it’s the right thing to do, but also b) I expect they would be the same ones she’d be turning to in August.
And for our part, we’ve actually slowed down our kids’ progress in math a little bit—it’s been on the fast side for the district, but not the maximum they offer. Basically, we’ve wanted to make sure they have a thorough grounding in foundational mathematics (as distinct from arithmetic) before moving on, and there’s a tendency in our school district to take IMO problematic shortcuts (like shorting instruction in geometric proofs).
@BorgityBorg Each school in our county puts out a info sheet each year with AP data, SAT and GPA ranges, etc.
we are in the same state as @peachActuary73 I believe and S19 was in the accelerated program and this year got to choose between Calc AB or BC. We decided to stick with AB and he has had minor struggles. i was going to have him take AP stat next year, but he was put into BC. Due to wanting a CS degree, I am contemplating between AP stats and AP Lang. (he went honors lit and took regular 12th grade lit this year… was a year ahead , sorta, very long story). So does he take AP stats or AP Lang? Or do we take out Calc BC. decisions decisions. He will have an internship so he only takes 4 classes.
now that AP tests are over today, he has just a few days to figure out internship. He has to make his final presentation for self directed study.
LOR… he has been using the same teachers all year for Camp CIT, Internship, etc… he probably needs to change it up for college. We were actually thinking of using the Media Center folks, as those are the professionals he is closest to. He has spend the last 3 years helping them out. The adore him. He was also on the Tech team since he was doing that anyway, and then mentor for that might also be able to write a LOR. I figure we start school in mid Aug and he can work on that then…
@BorgityBorg it’s on our school profile that goes to all AOs with each student’s transcript.
We are slowing our D21 down in math. She was on the same track at S19 and has an A minus in math this freshman year but she really doesn’t like math and I don’t see it in her college future. She will focus mostly on accelerated classes and APs in English and History as well as French. She will still get to Calc AB by senior year but that’s a slower track that S19 who will take Multivariable next year.
My son will also be deciding between AP Calc AB and AP Calc BC. I think BC at our school is a beast, and AB is just a bit more easy to manage from what I hear. At our school if the kid can actually get out of pre-calc alive it’s a miracle. Honors Pre-Calc has the rep of being the hardest class at our school and kid’s lose their minds over it. The teacher is very tough and does not make it easy on the kids. Getting a B+ or better is considered good.
My S19 is doing AP Calc BC this year. His class is the first one that was offered an official accelerated path to it, by allowing some of the kids to take Algebra 1 over the summer before 8th grade. When S14 was in high school some students did it on their own and the school blessed it. We weren’t aware of it and so S14 didn’t do the accelerated track, but it hasn’t hurt him in the long run.
Ah, I found a datasheet for our school. It’s fairly dismal. In 2016, 186 students took 312 APs and 34.9 of those tests were 3 or above. Although over 75% of the fine arts APs were 3 or above, so that’s nice. If my kid were taking a fine arts AP, which he is not. I’m glad I wasn’t counting on AP scores for the kid to get into any colleges.
Our profile isn’t detailed either. 840 students took 1 or more AP exams. Of students taking exams, 53% scored 3 or higher.
Not sure if that means that the students who scored 3 or higher did so on all exams they took.
@sdl0625 is your son hoping to use the AP credits for college? You/he may want to check if he would get credit for both Lit and Lang. The colleges I checked, my d wouldn’t get credit for both. Assuming your son would need to take another English in place of Lang if he didn’t take it? For 4 years of English? Does his school have fun alternatives?
Our school isn’t super specific about AP test results. Profile just says “94% of students earned a 3,4, or 5 on at least one test. 90% of all scores were a 3,4, or a 5.”