My D23 has a learning disability related to math and only took precalc as a senior. No top 50 schools for her but she was accepted all 13 schools she applied to (as a humanities major) without Calc or a senior year science class. Baylor, Furman, Trinity U, Sewanee, Elon, and a number of publics.
No, not super competitive schools but not slouchy schools either.
This (what level of math to take senior year) is an interesting question and one that we have been struggling with. My D25 is looking to major in a biology sub-field, so the S part of STEM, but also a less mathy S than, say, physics. She is considering several selective schools, e.g., Cornell and Berkeley, but also less selective but still excellent schools, e.g., UWash and Purdue. Her school does offer Calculus, but not an AP Calculus and nothing beyond the one calculus course. She does have the option to take AP Calc AB or BC through an outside program like JHU’s CTY program.
We are considering this Calc AB option to 1) enhance her application and 2) to provide a better preparation / foundation for college. Since her HS does not offer AP Calc of any kind, would not having that on her transcript have any negative effect on her application? The consistent feedback that I get is that AOs will not hold against her not taking classes that are not offered. However, I cannot help feeling that if you have two kids that are in many ways similar and one has an additional preparatory building block that the other lacks, that the AO would go with the more prepared student.
Second, regardless of that first question, would there be a “preparation” benefit to taking an AP Calc AB course vs the high school provided regular Calc course?
She will not be penalized. Having said that, almost every STEM major requires you to take calc and most of the kids in the class will have taken AB (I am pretty confident at those schools most will actually have taken BC), so she will be at a disadvantage if she doesn’t have some knowledge coming in. Calc in college can be quite challenging.
Yes, this is my fear. Even if non-AP Calc would be acceptable for admissions purposes, would she “be behind” her peers if accepted. Most of the degree programs we have reviewed for her intended major do require 2 semesters of calc in college (can place out of some with an appropriate AP score) so, it seems to me that buckling down and taking the higher level course may prove to be a benefit when the stakes are higher in college.
To provide another data point, my humanities-oriented, math-averse D22 was admitted to Rice (unhooked RD) and UVa (legacy EA) without calculus of any kind - she chose to take AP Stats instead. (Which was a mistake in hindsight, as she didn’t end up liking Stats and many of her friends had good experiences with the AP Calc teacher.) But point being, admission w/o calc is possible at very very good schools, at least for a humanities student, if the rest of the application is strong.
Along the same lines of whether AP calculus is “required” for admission to top20 schools as a humanities major IF your high school offers AP Calc: my older kid was in the opposite situation. Intended STEM major who disliked humanities. Did NOT take an AP History (APUSH & AP Euro were offered at our high school, maybe others too) and didn’t take AP Lit, although did take AP Lang. Applied to multiple highly rejective/T20 schools for CS/Engineering and received zero rejections. This was in 2020.
And this whole discussion highlights one of the core problems with the entire black box style admissions process at selective and especially rejective colleges: People try to figure out how they work, and since all anyone has or can have to work from is anecdote, we end up coming up with generalizations based on inadequate and quite likely misleading data.
And selective college admissions offices then proceed to decry the way that students (and their parents) overstress about the whole admissions process, telling everyone to calm down, without ever acknowledging that the problem is of their own creation.
Univ of Oregon finally has early April visit dates available!
If they want to go on to say med school or vet school or probably a lot of other doctorate science programs, they’ll have to take Calculus in college as a lot of the schools won’t accept AP Calc credits even if the undergrad school does. Taking AP calc would still most likely help in a college calculus class though.
D25 is taking the ACT for a second time this Saturday. She is not happy about it but did study a little. If the stars align she could go from a 33 to a 35. We’ll see.
She picked these classes for next year:
AP Statistics
AP Literature
AP Biology
Government/Painting I
AP Psychology
Newspaper II
We met with her college counselor last week, but it was not really helpful.
D25 just changed her senior classes.
Now taking Econ in summer and AP Env Sci instead of World of Children and the online course. I am thankful because the World of Children course makes them take home a baby for the weekend. I told her she had to take it to her dads because the crying would make our puppy go nuts!
Tonight we watched some online videos and quickly looked at college websites of Rider, Dean, and Shenandoah. She still really likes LeMoyne as well and thinks being close to her brother at Cuse is a huge plus.
3 out of 4 ensemble performances are done. I was able to delete the open website from my browser at last. Now it’s just down to the big one where she gets to miss 2 days of school for. I’m hoping she keeps up with everything in precalc and LA. Her other classes are pretty easy for her. She dislikes the LA teacher so much. She said she’s a terrible person and teacher. As much as she disliked physics and didn’t really connect with the teacher she thought he was a decent person and ok teacher. Even precalc is a good teacher but she hates math. I brought up for next year she might try and see who teaches calculus because I’ve already heard how disliked the stats teacher is. Fun fact is the stats teacher lives in my neighborhood and his mom is also a couple blocks away. We see her regularly in summer at the lake and is so sweet. I feel bad thinking her son is disliked.
Since I last wrote re: math, my guy has made a change. The BC calc teachers are really not great at my school, and he was really struggling in the class - barely got a B last quarter (an 80, which is the lowest B you can get) and no reason to believe he’d do better this quarter or next, particularly once his Spring sport starts in a few weeks. So today he dropped down and will be doing AB Calc for the rest of the year. I think this is the right call for him, by far, I just wish he’d made the choice a month ago when we first brought it up. He’s not going into a super math-y field (either geography or urban planning or maybe construction management) and doesn’t need to have super high level math. Better to really understand and succeed with what he is taking, then to aim overly high and not absorb material or perform well.
He was already planning on taking AP Statistics next year - and wants to take that as its a required course at most of the schools he’s looking at, for most of the things he wants to major in, and the schools all seem to give some AP credit for it. The question now, is, does he ALSO take BC Calc? He has one elective that he could fill with it. It shouldn’t be too hard, given that he’ll have taken AB which is more than half the class, but does he need to?
Here’s his planned schedule
AP Gov
AP English Lit
AP Chem
AP Chem Lab
AP Statistics
Photography
ASL
He doesn’t need the ASL - he’s already met his foreign language requirement. He just tossed that in there because it sounded interesting and he’s heard it’s not an overly hard class. Should he replace the ASL with BC Calc? He’s already got a really rigorous senior year, and I don’t want to make him miserable. I also don’t want to accidentally torpedo his chances at the schools that we already know would be real reaches for him.
Gosh, just casually lurking here (I have a D who is a college junior now) and his schedule looks fine! If he was going into engineering maybe, but he already had AB and the AP chem will be plenty rigorous. I vote to let him enjoy his senior year…he’ll already be working hard.
S25 has picked his classes for next year as well. Could still change, he’s debating whether to take concert band again or have a free period.
Religion (required)
AP Lit
AP Comp Gov
AP Calc AB
AP Bio
AP Spanish
Concert Band
He wants to take business in college.
Has he maxed out language at his school? If not, that might be a better option.
How will the BC>AB move be reflected on his transcript? That might inform your decision (as well as the schools he is applying to)
All these students setting their schedule for next year… Mine haven’t even picked what they will take in the spring 
We could be twinsies! 2023 at ‘Cuse and 2025 at LeMoyne! 
Reminder: Just because advanced courses exist at a school does not mean that every student has to (or even ought to) take all of them.
But then we wonder why our kids are so stressed out.
S23 is loving Cuse but D25 thought it too big. She liked her tour of LeMoyne. Its on our short list for sure.