It could be - my kids did find (but not as fine as OP mentioned) with AB.
In the end, I guess OP can decide - is moving beyond what they desire worth it with no guarantees…
No guarantees, but if you have specific goals you have to take your best shot.
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Is the MVC DE? It is in my school, and therefore I’m in it this year and have zero regrets. I have an A and I get transferrable college credit from an actual university (not cc).
I’m not sure about MVC in your school, but in mine we do plenty of things related to Earth Sciences (curl, divergence, vector fields, much more “applicable” calculus than BC).
In my school, a junior in BC is required to either take MVC or Post AP-Stat (offered by my school). The GC’s told us: no dropping math or dropping a level if you want a shot at a T20.
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If his school offers MVC, the schools you mention will want to see it.
In addition, he is going to be expected to continue with math in college. I would not want him to take a year off of his calculus trajectory to insert statistics. He will be rusty when he gets to college and has to get back on the calculus track.
Taking MVC will benefit him both in admissions and in college.
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This drives me insane. Because a kid has finished a rigorous year of college calc in 11th, he now MUST take the second year of college math, in 12th, or he looks like a slacker? Because he took Physics without calc in 11th, he now MUST take a year of college physics with calc in 12th, or he looks like a slacker?
Most schools don’t offer multivariable calc or Physics C, and this is definitely NOT held against applicants from those schools. High school is not only about college applications - it’s about education in and of itself. If he were to take MVC and Physics C, would he have a better shot at highly selective schools? Maybe. But he also might miss out on exploring potential areas of interest.
My advice is for him to take the classes that he wants to take, and let the chips fall where they may. He should look very carefully at the quality of the teachers who are teaching the AP classes, and consider not taking ones with known bad teachers, because really, the teacher is what makes the class worth taking.
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I think it depends on the culture of the school. Where my D went to HS, the highest level of math was AP calc. No option for more advanced work in school and it was highly discouraged to accelerate beyond with DE courses.
Where we currently live, the public HS offers MVC as part of their normal accelerated math curriculum, so if you place into that sequence in middle school, you’ll end up in MVC. The really high achievers are taking diff eq and linear at the university.
Since this poster said her student is gunning for Cornell, Dartmouth, ND, WashU, and Williams, it does matter what his peers are taking. If there was a different wish list, I would have given similar advice to take what you want and not worry about it.
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I can’t speak for others, but I didn’t say that.
In this instance, one has to separate what should be done for college admissions vs he should do for his education. And the college admissions piece is further dependant on a number of factors, including which colleges.
From the learning perspective, since the kid will need MVC in college, I’m personally of the opinion that MVC is easier if one doesn’t have a year-long break. Whether that matters for the OP’s son is something for him to decide.
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Our school’s, and my own belief, is that AP’s are more about quality than quantity. It’s more important to get “5”'s than to add on that 11th AP course. Your son is taking AP stats, so he’s taking a “math” course senior year. That’s fine. Advanced math discussions are a College Confidential rabbit’s hole, but taking multivariable calculus isn’t “better” than AP stats. In the scale of rigorous or “advanced” math, both are largely irrelevant.
The choice between Physics C and Physics 1 has some nuance, but it’s not productive to wonder if admissions is going to scrutinize why this accelerated student chose the less rigorous Physics pathway. Maybe it’ your high school’s policy to require Physics I first? They wouldn’t know. The College Board created the Physics I and II pathway for a lot of reasons like enabling less advanced math students to engage physics, including more lab experiences, and overall slowing the curriculum. So it’s not so easy to say that Physics I is a prelude to Physics C. It’s really different tracks. Neither track is anything more than a broad survey of a few select topics in physics that would bear little to no resemblance to a single semester advanced Physics college class at a T20 University.
The question of AP’s, how many, which ones, is really common on this website, so you might poke around some of the other threads. The kinds of minor decisions (AP Stats vs. Multi), (Physics I vs. C) are unlikely to move the academic rating at all, and neither accomplishment will mean much for admission, even with “5”'s. All of this is “good enough” academically, and for a student with “good enough” academics, it’s going to come down to community impact, EC’s and hooks.
AOs generally try to evaluate applications in context and it is quite possible that AOs may evaluate students’ course choices differently at a school where 9% goes to Ivies. We don’t know a lot about the OP’s son’s school.
It would be better for the OP’s son to find out what is normally considered a high rigor schedule at his own school, typical of students at his own school who are admitted to the reach schools listed. I liked the advice given by @momofboiler1
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OP has already taken AP Physics 1. The question posed was AP Physics C vs APES, which I don’t believe any AO will scrutinize.
Nor will any AO ask why a student bothered with AP Physics 1 instead of going straight to C; the number of high schools that allow that are in the distinct minority.
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And I did address the original question. The context was that the student chose AP Physics 1 over AP Physics C. Historically and in most schools currently, Physics C is taken at the same time as Calculus BC. At least according to the College Board.
That’s the context. Now the question moving forward is whether to repeat a lot of the same material with Physics C. Hope that clarifies.
But the OP didn’t ask about the learning perspective. She only asked about admissions.
In this case, what is better for his applications happens to align with what would be better for his education. As I said in my post, the majors he is suggesting will require a calculus track in college. He will benefit from not taking a year off and having exposure to MVC while it high school.
If the poster hadn’t listed the highly selective colleges that they did or had been interested in a non-STEM major, my stance might have been different. But this student wants admission to schools that make decisions on the razor’s edge.
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Whether a kid should be “forced” to take more math rebounds onto whether you believe in “authenticity”. Ostensibly the reason you want kids to only take what they want to explore.
If a kid accelerates in math, he’s (possibly inadvertently) showing he has interest in that subject. If he takes a year away from a subject he is “passionate” about, then many would discount his math work as irrelevant and insincere for the sake of admissions - which might sound okay for someone who doesn’t do anything for the sake of college, but a tough reality for the kid.
Fortunately for those who accelerate now, there are myriad online and other resources available for continued authentic study. Those include many completely free resources like Khan academy, MIT Open Courseware, YouTube, CTY (where many can receive a need-based scholarship). With all of this information online, and if you believe in the true passions of a 16 year old, what your high school offers, parents income, geography and a lot of other factors become less relevant to a kid’s choice of rigor. If a kid has passion enough to find PROMYS academy, he probably has enough time to find one of the 5+ entirely free online courses on linear algebra on Youtube.
The flip side to “diversity” is that colleges are looking for students to be more packaged so they can build a class community both socially and academically. So why introduce a self-inflicted disadvantage by accelerating in math one year and then appearing to find another passion the next? Then the story possibly looks like the kid who eats his broccoli first so that he can get to the stuff he really likes. And that’s too bad if the kid authentically likes broccoli.
Thanks for all the input. Based on the feedback my son is currently planning to take:
Honors English
Honors Theology
Post-AP Multivariable Calculus
AP Econ
AP Environmental Science
AP Spanish
The only thing he is still considering is whether to switch out APES for AP Stats. He likes the idea of doubling down on math, but is concerned that if he does that, he would only have 3 years of science.
He took AP physics 1 as a freshman, prior to taking calculus. Now that he has taken calculus BC, he could take AP Physics C as a senior. But AP physics C is a double block, which would make his schedule rather tough if he is also taking Multivariable and the other APs. So it isn’t so much that he chose one vs. the other. His school happened to offer it as a freshman, so he took that. Now he is facing a new independent decision.
What subjects is he most interested in, and what possible college majors could he choose?
I think data science or finance are his likely majors. He is also interested in earth science, but career wise he is less sure where that would lead him (so maybe a minor in that, or double major with one of the other ones).
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