<p>I think that there is a significant contingent of folks who believe that one must achieve calculus proficiency in order to be an educated person. Some might also include proficiency in multiple languages, an instrument, and so on. Those who have such skills along with strong reading and writing, detailed knowledge of history and politics, and the sciences are exceptionally well educated. They are not average students. Not every English major needs to understand calculus, nor does every engineer need to read Moby Dick (and analyze) - though each would likely be enriched if they could broaden their skills.</p>
<p>I do not think kids should need to take Calculus in high school in order to take Calculus as a college freshman. Mine elected AP stats as seniors. But mine took Calculus in college without needing a remedial class and did OK. The point is kids should be prepared to take Calculus in college if they need it and not have to take a remedial math class especially at a selective college. I did not take Calculus until grad school and it was not fun by any means as it had been 6 years since I’d had Trigonometry and 7 years since an Algebra class however I did take Statistics in college because it was more relevant to my BA major. I do not think you need Calculus to be considered “educated.” I do believe kids should be ready to step into freshman college classes at a selective college or university without having to take remedial classes. Whether they successfully navigate those classes is not the discussion. I also agree with Calmom. But college bound kids should have the appropriate high school foundational courses to enter many colleges. If they can’t successfully navigate the foundational courses then they aren’t ready for a selective college or university. They should also be able to write a comprehensive essay devoid of spelling errors, punctuation errors and passive voice unless passive voice is essential. They should understand the basics of citation. These are very, very minimal college ready skills.</p>
<p>So do all of your kids have to take calculus in college?</p>
<p>My daughter is at a 4 year public state university in FL. The general ed math requirements(assuming you’re in a major that does not require math) are College Algebra and Statistics. My daughter will never, ever take calculus</p>
<p>My daughter is a math major…Over break, we had a great conversation about statistics, which she took last semester. Her comment was that everyone teaching in higher Ed should have a stat class.</p>
<p>My kids, my husband, and I all had to take calculus. Our majors were computer science, economics, math, and biology, respectively. But there are plenty of majors for which calculus is not required.</p>
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<p>OK, then, what do you think should happen if the student is not prepared to take calculus in college?</p>
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<p>It would concern me greatly if my kids enrolled in a selective college and needed any remedial classes It would definitely give me pause and I would wonder if they would be better staying home another year and catching up in a community college retaking some basic classes in whatever they were deficient. I would wonder if they were going to be able to graduate in four years. It would be another added stress to the stress we feel normally wondering how a student will do freshman year. I would probably be holding my breath for 365 days. Short of that there’s not much that can be done. Clearly if selective colleges have remedial classes they must have success re-mediating these kids and getting them on track and caught up to the other freshman students.</p>
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<p>Agreed. Something’s seriously wrong with a given high school’s math curriculum if that’s the case. </p>
<p>If one’s taking calculus…or any college-level course…they should be ready for the next course in the sequence at any respectable college/university. </p>
<p>As a slacker in high school…I didn’t take calc in high school because I wanted a math-free year.* Despite the imprudence of that decision…had no problems being placed into calculus and did fine. </p>
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<li>Even my STEM-centered high school only mandated 3 years of math…though they’d strongly encouraged you to take 4. </li>
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<p>Educated? Ha! At my high school…achieving calculus proficiency was a prerequisite for being merely sentient. Since I was part of a tiny minority which didn’t take calc in high school…we didn’t meet that standard and many classmates and even some STEM teachers took great pains to never let us forget that “fact”.</p>
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It really irks me to see a precalculus course labeled “remedial”. I realize that some highly selective colleges don’t offer such courses – whereas most community colleges offer courses from algebra on up… but it doesn’t make the course “remedial.” It just means that the more selective university has decided to set a higher bar.</p>
<p>How would you feel if your kid’s highly selective college didn’t offer any introductory foreign language classes – if they just declared that, since all of their students should have taken 4 years of language in high school, they should be able to enroll directly in an advanced, third year French or Spanish or German language course at the university? Why should university resources be wasted teaching basic lessons in vocabulary and grammar when they could be focused on advanced reading and discourse for students who are already fluent in the language?</p>
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This is an example of my point. A university’s "general ed’ requirements cannot be characterized as “remedial”. It is simply the entry point course at that university. If a highly selective college chooses to set a higher bar, so be it - but what is considered college-level should not be defined by the level of preparedness of students enrolling at MIT or Harvard.</p>
<p>99 percent of the people walking around on this earth cannot do calculus.</p>
<p>For whatever that’s worth.</p>
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<p>When my son found out that he would need to retake precalculus his first semester in college, it never occurred to me to suggest that he go to a community college instead. If I had suggested it, it would have come as quite a shock to him, since he failed the math placement test during his college orientation, where he had also arranged his schedule and made other plans for his first semester – with great enthusiasm. </p>
<p>I must admit that I did go on the college’s web site and examine the curriculum in his planned major of computer science, to see whether he would still be able to complete the requirements in eight semesters (it turned out not to be a problem). I also encouraged him to try to fulfill the prerequisites for an alternate major in case computer science turned out to be too “mathy” for him. (He didn’t do this and was quite offended at the suggestion.) </p>
<p>But staying home and going to a community college because he was one course behind schedule in a single subject? That was never considered.</p>
<p>Perhaps I should also add that his one deficiency was not in any way indicative of an inability to succeed academically. He ended up graduating with an honors degree and a 3.8 GPA and being accepted into a top-20 Ph.D. program in computer science. A guy who can do that does not belong in a community college, in my opinion.</p>
<p>To add to my last post – in California, the standards for high school curriculum are in part set by the standards for admission to the UC system – that is, the UC system has a role in deciding which courses at public high schools are “approved” for UC entrance requirements, and local districts set high school graduation requirements with an eye on the UC entrance requirements. (It makes sense to try to guarantee that high school grads will met minimum entrance requirements for the UC system).</p>
<p>As I noted way upthread, the UC system requires that high school grads have 3 years of math. I’d also note that it doesn’t mean that the student has to actually sit in high school classroom studying math for 3 years – it means that the student needs to have completed the putative third level of high school math. As the common math sequence is algebra I; geometry; algebra II – that means that a student who has completed algebra II in high school has met UC admission requirements, even if that particular student had taken algebra in 7th grade, geometry in 8th, and algebra II as a 9th grader. (I don’t know any students who fit that profile, however – the more common situation is the student who is enrolled in geometry as 9th grader). I’d note that my daughter had completed algebra II in tenth grade because the high school enrolled her in geometry by mistake in 9th grade - she had not previously taken algebra in middle school. My d. did not complete any level of math beyond that, and was accepted to 3 UC campuses. </p>
<p>I’d also note that the SAT math does not cover much beyond algebra II. I think they now have a couple of trig questions thrown in, but I think it is quite possible for a student to score well above 700, and perhaps even 800, with no course beyond algebra II. </p>
<p>The average SAT for entering freshman in the UC system from 1994-2008 was 1190 (combined math & CR). See [University</a> of California - Accountability Report](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/accountability/2009/index/3.7]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/accountability/2009/index/3.7)</p>
<p>It seems to me that the standards appropriate for one of the largest state university systems is appropriate for defining what is an appropriate level of college preparedness vs. what is “remedial.” As I read the admission requirements and data, it sounds to me like trigonometry and precalc are appropriate entry points for college math, given the fact that by definition the university will have to admit many students who have no high school mat instruction beyond advanced algebra. (State residents are guaranteed admission to the system if they have completed prerequisites and meet minimum GPA/test score requirements.)</p>
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<p>How does a class that teaches tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade math in college not count as remedial? That’s the very definition of remedial. Trigonometry, exponentials, functions… these are things taught in high school math class.</p>
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<p>Very poor analogy. Students ** who took three or four years of a language in high school** should not need to enroll in introductory classes in that language. For them, such classes would be remedial. Colleges have introductory language classes because students want to study new languages they didn’t study in high school.</p>
<p>But there’s only one high school geometry, one high school trigonometry, one high school algebra. Students don’t arrive at at college accidentally having studying Russian trigonometry and Bulgarian algebra, and now having to learn the American kind-- trig is trig, and you were supposed to learn it in high school.</p>
<p>Well I just finished a semester of calculus at a SUNY with a B+ as a high school senior. Next year, as a college freshman, I’m confident I will be even better prepared for the next level of calculus because I wont have skipped a year of math in the regular track as I did this year and I will have more time to study (late nights this year due to swimming and drama club). </p>
<p>I know I will be prepared for calculus next year, but then again I have always been good at math and I want to go into physics, which involves a lot of math. Not everybody’s talent is in math and not everybody wants to pursue math. </p>
<p>That means not everybody will be prepared for calculus. However, some of the kids unprepared for calculus in their freshman year might be star students in their English of history classes. </p>
<p>Each student brings something unique to college. If being unprepared for calculus meant somebody should not be in college, college would be very monotonous.</p>
<p>There are two points I would like to make:
- I think the focus on Calculus is a bit misleading. Many colleges make/STRONGLY suggest that incoming freshman retake Calculus/Chemistry/Bio/Physics, even with a 4 or 5 on the AP exam.
- Back in the dark ages, I was one of the few students in my Freshman calculus class (at UCB’s rival) who hadn’t already taken calculus (my HS didn’t offer it). I would say that almost all of the math/engineering students had already taken calculus in HS but still took the regular Calculus first year sequence. I don’t think it’s a sin to take calculus again if the school/student thinks that makes sense.</p>
<p>We’re not talking about taking Calculus AGAIN as a freshman we’re talking about selective colleges who admit kids who are not ready for calculus. From Uof M’s math placement testing site:</p>
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<p>and yes, at $6,000 for a spring/summer mini-semester or $13,000+ for a semester or $26,000+ for an additional year, if one of mine needed classes that would preclude him from completing a degree in 4 years at our flagship you bet your bippee I would have him take what he needed at a local college or CC.</p>
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No, those are things taught in elective, advanced high school courses. How is French 1 at a university not “remedial” if a student can take French in high school? How is “Introduction to American Government” not “remedial” if a student could (and should) take civics in high school? My daughter took psychology in high school, scored 5 the AP exam and started with an advanced psych course her first semester – were all the students who enrolled in the Psych 101 course therefore in a “remedial” course?</p>
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Colleges offer precalc classes because students want to move beyond the level and/or type of math that they opted or were required to take in high school. Additionally, many student who studied a language for 3 or 4 years in high school do not do well enough on college placement exams to place into an advanced level in college; no one shames them or labels their coursework “remedial” because the course level on paper looks like it replicates what the were supposed to get in high school.</p>
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<p>Actually, I think it is only the ACT-math that has trig. SAT-M does not go beyond Alg II and it just includes a handful of problems at that.</p>
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<p>Concur. Precalc is not a requirement for admissions to UC or Cal State. Thus, not remedial for those systems, including the flagship(s) Cal Berkeley and UCLA. </p>
<p>OTOH, there are plenty of math courses below precalc offered at the Cal States. Since Alg II is a prereq for admissions, students should not have to remediate that course material – but they do, and Cal State provides it. Four years of English is required for Cal State (and UC), but both systems still provide remedial English.</p>
<p>Again, ~50% of all Cal State Frosh require remediation, as determined by Cal State and which is their term for repeating work a student should have mastered in HS.</p>
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<p>That’s the problem today…if kid’s are college prep and moving to college immediately after high school they should not be able to “opt out” of college prep classes. If they are, then the problem is in the high schools and colleges who would admit them without the appropriate pre-requisite classwork. The “good” thing about Michigan’s rule is once kids are on the trajectory they have no choice but to continue up…because they have to have 4 years of math to graduate except you can take AP statistics in lieu of AP Calc. The problem with Michigan’s rule is it is really, really hard for the non-college bound kids so they added math classes at the “bottom.” but that doesn’t matter because we’re talking about college prep kids going to selective colleges.</p>
<p>I agree that language isn’t a good analogy because if you’ve had a couple years or 4 years of high school language you can probably test out of a 100 level class. And lots of kids take a different language in college for fun so they need 100 level classes. Math is core.</p>
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U of Michigan does NOT require students to take calculus to graduate. The basic degree requirements for LSA is a single, 3-unit “quantitative reasoning” course which “may come from a wide range of disciplines representing the natural and social sciences.” That requirement can be filled with courses in philosophy or economics, among other subjects.</p>
<p>My daughter filled her college’s single semester “quantitative reasoning requirement” 3 times over – she would argue 4 – and she never took calculus. First my d. took an advanced-level course in linguistics, which she thought was pretty heavy in the “quantitative reasoning” department… but her school doesn’t view it that way. Then my d. took a year of astronomy, a lab science, either semester of which would have easily satisfied the QR requirement, but my d. opted to apply it to the 1-year lab science requirement instead. Finally she took the stats classes mentioned above.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether my d. would have been “ready” or not to take calculus – I’m sure it would have been a struggle, but maybe my d. would have muddled through, and then promptly forgot whatever it was she supposedly learned the day after the final exam. But why? What possible benefit could it have been for her to waste the time and effort in a course she didn’t need for her degree, doesn’t need for her career aspirations, and won’t need for any graduate program she aspires to? </p>
<p>I mean, you might as well argue that my d. should have arrived in college prepared to read ancient Greek – (something matriculants at her college were indeed once required to know)… or bemoan the number of students who arrive at Columbia “unprepared” to pass the mandatory swim test, and must therefore be enrolled in a “remedial” PE class, to learn something that my d. was proficient with at age 5. </p>
<p>Calculus is NOT required for MOST 4-year degrees awarded at MOST colleges. It IS a requirement for most STEM majors, but the majority of college student are not STEM majors.</p>
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. Oh, that explains it, then - LOL. My d. actually scored slightly worse on the ACT math section then on SAT math – but opted to use her her ACT score for college apps because of the composite score.</p>