In California girl applying to uni this fall! [3.9 UW, 36 ACT] - #23 by heavyweightcollege (post #23 and later), there was commentary that the student being chanced had diminished chances at highly selective colleges because they were not in the highest math at the school (which was at least calculus BC) but was “only” in calculus AB, the highest math that they could take based on 9th grade math placement into algebra 1 (they took geometry over a summer to get on the +1 track).
This means that a decision may have to be made in middle school:
Push for the student to get into the highest math acceleration track, if there is desire to retain possibility of admission to a highly selective college. Of course, it may not turn out well, with struggles and worse grades.
Not push the student to accelerate more in math, but if the “natural” placement is not the highest math acceleration track, write off admission to a highly selective college.
The second option is likely better for the student’s academic development, but it seems that parents who see a high achieving student get focused on admission to a highly selective college and choose the first option to at least have a chance of retaining that possibility.
Of course, some high schools respond like this:
which can deny the students strong in math to take more advanced math appropriate for them, and also exclude students from those (few) colleges (or majors/divisions at colleges) that list calculus as an admission requirement.
Or they allow the situation to become like this:
where it is hard to believe that 10% of the students in a high school that is not a math-focused specialty school are appropriately on the +4 math track (calculus in 9th grade), and the +1 math track (calculus in 12th grade) is considered bottom 20%.
Alternatively, or in conjunction, parents should push schools on this nonsense (assuming they’d be able to fill the class) of not offering a Calc BC course following precalc. High achieving students don’t need precalc and AB and BC to take 3 years.
At our high school, you can turn the +1 track (geo 9th, alg2 10th, precalc 11th, calcAB 12th) into a +2 by taking alg2/precalc H in 10th, then calc AB in 11th and BC in 12th (school requires AB before BC). This usually requires an A in geo H in 9th.
But. Big but
Back to the original topic, students that are in calc AB this year at our school are among those accepted to Stanford, Cal and JHU (and quite probably other highly selectives, these are the ones I know for sure off the top of my head), so I don’t see the point in pushing in middle school or even anywhere. Those are, I suspect, the parents I see looking desperately for math tutors for their kids for high school precalc and calc.
That seems odd in that it accelerates algebra 2 and precalculus but then decelerates calculus, so the end result is still +1 (instead of +0.5 after finishing with AB).
Back when I was in high school decades ago, the +1 track led to precalculus in 11th and calculus BC in 12th, and probably enrolled 8-10% of the students (25-30% of four year college bound students). Students on the +2 track were one every few years, and found all high school math including calculus BC to be easy A courses – in contrast to today where the +2 track is more common, but some of the students struggle and need tutoring, etc..
I can’t see how anyone thinks it’s healthy to have the pressure of being at a school like that - I bet it’s not confined to math. What happened to allowing teenagers to be teenagers?
BC is the highest calc offered at our school /school district. I was under the impression that counted as a +2 track, not +1, but maybe different schools see it differently. Regardless, the point is that we have quite a lot of people getting into highly selective schools (especially considering it’s just a regular public school) and a good number of them are not in the highest math track offered.
I might be biased. I was a math major in university.
Students should take the level of math that is appropriate for them. I also think that students and their parents should be very cautious about jumping ahead. The worst thing that a student might do is to jump ahead in math and do badly.
Math is an area where what you are learning now depends a lot on what you learned last year and the year before. What you are going to be learning next year is going to depend a lot on what you are learning now. It pays to learn each step very well.
All of this might be particularly true of high school algebra and also of calculus, including multi-variate calculus. I have used high school algebra and I have used calculus extensively both in advanced math classes, and on the job. It pays to take the time to learn these very well.
Then look for a university that is a good fit for you.
I would rather see A’s or A+’s in “normal track” math classes than see B’s or even worse C’s in advanced math classes.
And if you don’t get into Caltech or MIT or Stanford that is okay. You can do very well with a degree from your in-state public university. You can also get into very good master’s degree programs, if you want to do it, with a bachelor’s from your in-state public university. When I was studying for my master’s degree, I knew a lot of fellow students who had done exactly that.
I would be very cautious about jumping ahead in math.
Anecdotally, at S24’s feederish HS, people could get into the most selective colleges without being in the most advanced Math classes, but to be fair they had up to two years of courses available for after Calc BC (although most of the advanced Math students only did one after BC).
The AB versus BC when BC is available issue to me feels like it could be a problem at the most selective colleges sometimes, but then so would be non-A Math grades.
So personally I wouldn’t risk it if it wasn’t the recommended sequence for my kid. But again to be fair, I don’t think the most selective colleges should necessarily be the most desired anyway.
This has been what I have observed at the school my kids attend, where it is very common to accelerate in math and there are a TON of kids who do take BC (and many who are reaching this course in 10th or 11th grade). The kids who “only” take AB in 12th grade still have great outcomes and are getting into Ivies and other highly selective schools. I just saw that one kid who opted out of calculus entirely (choosing to go from precal to AP Stats) is headed to Vanderbilt. I’m not convinced that BC is as big of a “must” course as CC tends to make it out to be.
I also know that most of the math professors I have worked with in the past do not let their kids take algebra 1 before 8th grade and limit them to accelerating no more than +1 so that they end up in calculus for 12th grade and not before then. They felt pretty strongly about not accelerating too quickly even though their kids were very strong math students.
I tend to agree with this. It’s more important for students to feel comfortable and truly understand the material at their level rather than being pushed to accelerate too quickly. I see a lot of parents having their kids take summer classes just to move into advanced tracks, and I’m not convinced that really helps with college admissions.
In my own experience, my older daughter took AP Calc BC in 10th, AP Stats in 11th, and multivariable calculus/differential equations in 12th, but she still had to take biometrics in college. My younger daughter, who attended the same school, took AB first and then BC in 12th, and will likely need a similar stats/biometrics course for her major as well. Interestingly, my younger daughter actually received a better scholarship package than her sister, despite taking fewer advanced math and science courses.
So unless a student is planning to major in something like math or engineering, I don’t really see a strong need to rush ahead. Depth of understanding and overall balance seem to matter more than how advanced they are in math and science.
The problem with this whole situation is that deserving kids (those who truly need more advanced math, as well as poor/minority students who only get algebra in school not at home) get punished. And they get punished because too many other parents think their kids are “just as smart/deserving” and therefore should be “as advanced as possible,” so they screw up the system by filling advanced classes with kids who are missing topics or not there for the right reasons.
This punishment takes the form of programs cancelling algebra in middle school (which has happened in both CA and MA, to my knowledge, and perhaps other places).
We end up with pretentious statements about how it’s so important not to miss details or rush through math, which are not heeded by the students who actually have this problem. Students who are truly gifted in math and who love it, don’t want to miss math any more than their professors want them to.
I also want to speak to the claim that “advanced” students or “good” schools don’t need to spread Calc AB and Calc BC into two years - when good schools do this, it’s in lieu of Precalculus. The “AB” course comes right after Alg/Trig/Geo and starts with Precalc material and then covers AB. The BC year does a quick review, covers BC, and, at least in my HS, then covers a good portion of some diff eq and a bit of linear algebra (or other topics of the teacher’s interest), and ends with AP review.
I think kids should be situated into a level their abilities can handle and that decision should be made by teachers or a teacher panel and not by parents.
My kid at 5 or 10 told me she was getting a full ride at Harvard.
Guess what - her quant levels weren’t all that - and while she did well in Calc AB, she bombed the AP test - and bombed a math class that was no harder in college.
So - why would it ever be good to place a student above their reasonable level?
That one wants a UC or Harvard or wherever - and it doesn’t mean it can’t happen - but at some point, one has to learn their limits - and balance.
My daughter had Calculus BC AND bunch of AP classes and Harvard still sent her a “BIG Rejection” email. Apparently curing cancer and solving world hunger weren’t on her transcript.
All 8th graders in our district take Algebra. The standard track in high school goes to precalc in 11th grade, and Calc AB in 12th grade. Students can test into an “advanced” math track at either the end of 8th grade or the end of 9th grade. This puts them on a track to Calc BC in 12th grade which is the highest math available at our school.
Our school has students going to MIT, Stanford, Caltech, all Ivies, etc. every year, but I don’t know how many of these are on the Calc BC vs Calc AB track.
AP calc was the highest level of math offered at my D’s HS. The teacher combined AB and BC and they were taught in one year. That was considered the +2 track. Plenty of students were accepted to top engineering schools + admits to HYPS.
In my current town the district tried to eliminate tracks to make it more equitable and have everyone reach calc by 12th grade. Parents fought back and they are back to offering math courses in the summer and the most advanced math students are taking linear algebra and diff eq senior year through the local university.
While the high school +1 math track (which is appropriate for many “good in math” students) can be of some value in math and math-dependent course progression in college (particularly for math-heavy majors), +2 or higher tends to have diminishing returns beyond that, and is really only appropriate for a small number of students who on their own (not through parental pushing) are effectively asking for more advanced math.
Agree here, but it seems that many parents do not agree, and some posters (in the other thread) seem to think that not being in the most accelerated math track is harmful for admission to highly selective colleges.
