My D26 (current sophomore) is thinking about taking accelerated pre-calc through her high school this summer. I’m curious about opinions on whether she should do this or pursue other activities. I think these are her options:
Take pre-calc this summer. Then she can take AP Calc AB her junior year. Then, she can take AP Stats her senior year. This is the maximum math that she could take through her fairly small high school.
Take pre-calc this summer. Then take AP Calc AB her junior year. Then, she could attempt to do dual enrollment to take other math at a local college. She’s particularly interested in stats, which could be calc based, and linear algebra. She might also just keep going and take calc 2 and 3. The challenge is that the local college doesn’t have a ton of options for times for these courses, so by senior year it may be difficult to actually fit dual enrollment into her schedule. Her high school operates a rotating schedule by day, so you can never be exactly sure what time a class will be on a given day.
Get a job, volunteer, enroll in a summer program, etc. This isn’t nailed down, but she does have the possibility to get into a physics program at a local university. But we won’t know about that for a little while. And this is something that maybe she does next summer instead. This would lead to some different options:
3a) Take pre-calc junior year and then AP Calc senior year. No stats.
3b) Take pre-calc AND AP Stats junior year. Then AP Calc senior year. Double math, but this seems possible if her school schedule allows.
I have told her that she can do what she wants and that as long as she does something with her summer, all of these options are fine. I’m not particularly worried about which option is “best” for applying to college, but I am interested in how it might impact her college curriculum. She leans towards pre-calc this summer because she really wants to take stats and doesn’t really want to double math if she can avoid it. My one consideration with this approach is that she’ll basically take a year off calc her senior year and then when she goes to college she’ll potentially jump right into calc 2 and may have lost some calc ability in that time. It’s bad enough to forget stuff over a summer, but a full year and then trying to get it restarted in college seems somewhat fraught.
And while she doesn’t know exactly what she wants to study in college, she’s likely STEM something, so the math should all be valuable even if she doesn’t necessarily get credit for it depending on where she goes to college.
This is what I would recommend for my own child in this situation, but it would also depend on how these classes are taught at your school.
At our school precalc is a pretty intense class. My son and his friends thought it was harder than calc (and it was my son’s only B grade in HS). So it wouldn’t be my first choice of class to suggest doing over the summer.
She could talk to teachers and students to find out how it’s taught at her school, and whether it’s common for students to find it challenging.
She can also look at the material covered in the class at her HS, and see if it’s the sort of material that tends to come more easily to her, or if she already feels confident with some of it.
In general, I would not take pre-calc in a compressed summer course. A strong understanding of the concepts is important moving forward. If she completes Calc AB in HS that is great.
If she wants to take AP Stats as well that is fine but not necessary.
This is actually the first year that the school is offering it over the summer. She lobbied her math teacher and principal to offer it. She knows the math teacher that will be teaching it (her current algebra II teacher) and he’s pretty confident that she’d do well in it. So she’s both guinea pig, but also the champion of the course.
She definitely wants to take Calc AB and she’s mildly annoyed that they don’t offer Calc BC. Stats is just something that she wants to learn/take, but she’s been reluctant to do this in her off-time. She’d rather do it through a course whether high-school or dual enrollment.
I vote for #3 and not even the physics program - get a job, volunteer locally at like the dog shelter, etc. These are GREAT things for a resume.
There’s not any schools in the country where Calc AB isn’t enough - and even if some want to take max rigor (which at your school AB is), they still have these kids there. And rushing through a pre-req class for another may not work out like you want.
A job teaches you a lot and shows a lot if you keep it, develop tenure - responsibility, teamwork, etc.
Summer academic programs are fine if you are using them for the right reason - to explore an area you might be interested in. For example, we sent ours to a week long engineering program - because he had gone through 4 majors of interest and we wanted him to see - is this what I really want to do. As for getting into a college with it - ehhhhhh. Depends on the program but I wouldn’t count on it.
Your student is already ahead of the game and I vote for allowing them to be a kid.
