<p>Never thought I’d be but am starting to tune in to the whole Math Talent scene. DD2 is in precalc and her teacher just emailed me that she has a 104 percent average for the quarter. She’s a ninth grader. The teacher said she should consider the math team and getting involved in competitions. I really don’t think of her in this mode but maybe . . . she says the higher she goes in math the more she likes it. This was not her older sister’s strength - nor my own. Dont know a darn thing about helping a kid along in this track. She seems to enjoy the math she’s doing. Not bored, I don’t think. Enjoys her crazy good grades. No complaining going on.</p>
<p>So I assume she’s getting what she needs. She will not run out of math classes - calc AB (10th), calc BC (11th), ap stats (12th). Her precalc teacher seems to think she could skip calc AB. My D says “No Way!”</p>
<p>AB/BC should be done in a single year. If she’s as smart as you say (and she is, to be taking Pre-Calc in 9th) then she should be taking both Calculus classes in a single year. Skip AP stats go simply to DiffEq for Junior year. Then senior year take something else.</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t see why your D could not skip AB. In our high school, students take either AB or BC, not Bc after AB. BC is really only 1/3 more materials than AB, so it goes a bit faster but it is certainly manageable.</p>
<p>If your D likes math and is in precalc as a 9th grader, she should seriously consider taking MVCalc and Linear Algebra in high school. Plenty of high schoolers do so and do very well.</p>
<p>I don’t know how my S learn DiffEq, but it was not a separate course.</p>
<p>No one in our school takes AB for a full year and then BC. You do one or the other. If you are reasonably good at math there is no reason not to do BC. (Of course your school may structure it so that it’s impossible.) My son did Calc BC as a junior and his senior year the school offered a multivariable Calc course for the first time as they had a small group of kids who had gotten ahead, mostly by taking precalc in the summer.</p>
<p>D1’s school has the students take AB for a full year, then BC for another year. It’s a small program, so I suspect they do this to make sure that all of the classes can be offered rather than because of any feeling that you can only learn the subject matter this way. This is a school with strong math students (vast majority of students are in calculus by 10th or 11th grade, a handful of each year’s class takes calc in 9th grade, and the school has had students on the US math olympiad team).</p>
<p>Actually, I’m right, and you’re wrong, Mr. Payne.</p>
<p>The math course offerings at any decent HS far eclipse the offerings in any other subject. Math talent is identified early and nurtured in every way possible (see, e.g. CTD at Northwestern). </p>
<p>My kid’s school has a bus to the local university for the little math whizzes who fly through B/C as sophomores, etc. (just for math kids: anything else and you’re on your own!).</p>
<p>Parents, think back to the math offerings when you were in HS, and look at your kid’s school. The growth in the top math classes is incredible.</p>
<p>Now, weigh the need to fix, say, inner-city schools with the “need” to add Calc WYZ… no comparison.</p>
<p>I would have no problem if my son wanted to become a professor. He wouldn’t get rich at it but engineers don’t typically get rich anyways. I’m amazed that one would think that professors don’t solve problems. Yes, there are teaching professors and research professors but I’ve seen the teaching professors do research on their own.</p>
<p>tetrahedr0n nice assumptions actually pretty foolish assumptions. Consider the bear, in the conversation of the best math students ever at her high school. She is considered the best ever at explaining mathematical concepts. She was offered a job last summer teaching calculus to high school kids at a summer academy at one of your schools national competitors. She turned it down because she won an international fellowship but has a standing offer to return. She plans use her math skills in another field of science. You seem to find fault with a broad based college prep curriculum that allowed her to start her college math career with Vector Calculus and I don’t know why.</p>
<p>One bias, a parent must be careful raising a daughter so she doesn’t lose her “voice”. Now let’s get to your foolishness about me and my views on math. First goal both my kids graduate from college. Second step basic college prep planning with the assumption they get a business degree. My son followed this plan and graduated with a degree in marketing at my PAC 10 alma mater. He always needed help with linear algebra and statistics. I gave it happily. Adjust plan by interests and abilities. The bear is a math whiz so her plan was adjusted to take AP Calculus AB & BC. Why didn’t she go further in math in high school? One of the advantages of being recruited early by top LAC’s is you get a feel for their credit transfer policies. She attends a top LAC that doesn’t allow transfer of college credit earned in high school so why bother? Why didn’t I tell her she had advanced abilities in math until she went to college? I wanted her to plan her future. You already know you are pretty good at math when you’re one of the 25,000 kids nationwide who got 5’s on the BC test and have an 800 on the SAT.</p>
<p>Every parent should have my views on math. It’s important and I will help you with it. And yes I got my attitudes about math came from my grandfathers.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s so bad about placing into a more advanced class in math in college even if the college doesn’t give you credit. Why stay on the bunny slope if you are ready to ski down something more interesting?</p>
<p>S1 wants to be a math professor. He absolutely loves teaching and got to do a decent bit of it last year. He was fortunate to attend a HS where he was able to get math well beyond BC Calc. His BC Calc class finished what would be covered on the exam by mid-December. He took MV, DiffEq, Discrete, LinAlg, Intro to Complex Analysis and Stat – all taught as one semester courses. He didn’t care if he got credit or not – he just wanted to learn something.</p>
<p>Mammall, the strong math kids at both S’s schools go straight to BC. S2, my humanities guy, is taking AB Calc this year and is having no problems. I would suggest letting D2 fly and make her own way – who knows where she’ll land! It’s a great chance for her to do completely different from her sister.</p>
<p>My S would have died if he could not have taken math beyond calculus while in high school. He looked into a LACs and decided that curriculum was not advanced enough for him. He has been taking graduate level classes and loving them. And despite being eligible for Advanced Standing, he is staying all four years in college. Getting transfer or college credit was absolutely not the reason why he took college level math while in high school. It had to do with his love of math.</p>