If you are a sophomore currently in a Precalculus class, take Calculus AB next year. Calculus is can be complicated. Sometimes, it is not taught well at school. The AP Calculus AB exam is much harder than the problems in the text book. Many of my students report that the juniors in their Calculus BC classes are dying. Your primary goal is to get an A in calculus. The UC system only gives bump ups for 2 AP or honors classes in the sophomore and junior years. If you take 3 of these classes and get a B in any one, you only get a bump up on 2 of the classes. Your 3rd B will remain a B.

If you are a junior in Precalculus:

  1. Take Calculus BC if this is required for your college major (some sciences, engineering, computers, some business). Calculus BC in college is really difficult. I have a student who got 800 on SAT Subject Math level 1 and 2, 800 SAT math l, A in Precalculus Honors and Calculus AB, and a 5 on the AP Calculus AB exam. This student got a B in college Calculus II. Apparently, the teacher taught a lot of theory and really didn’t use the book. Now this grade is on the permanent transcript that will be used for life. (By the way, my son Chris with a Yale Law degree, just applied for a job that asked for his SAT, ACT and PSAT scores.)
  2. Take Calculus AB if you know you do not need additional math courses in college.
  3. Take regular Calculus if you struggle at math. You may be tempted to not take math at all in the senior year. Be careful. Many colleges want to see 4 years of math on your transcripts. Also, most colleges will have you take a math diagnostic exam before signing up for classes. It is often difficult to do well on this exam if you haven’t had math for over a year. If you do poorly on this diagnostic exam, you may have to go back to Algebra 1 or Algebra 2. This will add more math classes to your college load. Some colleges will accept a score of 2 on the AP Calculus exam in lieu of the diagnostic exam. I strongly advised a Calculus regular student to take the AP calculus exam, recently. She did not and had to study precalculus with me during the summer to prep for her diagnostic exam. Her university allowed an AP Calculus score of 2 to pass onto college calculus. Unfortunately, the student was required to take the diagnostic exam before registering for fall college classes.
  4. Statistics can be taken instead of a math class. Check with several colleges with your major in mind to see if this is viable. Passing the AP Statistics exam may not release you from the college statistics class. This is dependent on the major and the college. Be aware that some AP Statistic teacher may not well prepare you for the AP exam. You may not be able to pass the exam. Jessica and Scott (my children) both passed the AP Statistics test with a 5. They received college credit. However, the college credit did not help them in their majors or to graduate faster.

Of my own 5 kids:

  1. Rachel knew she was going to major in art. She did not take calculus. She took statistics instead. Even as an art major, she was required to either take a year college calculus for non-majors or 2 semesters of a foreign language. Rachel could have made the right move. Rachel and I probably would have had a bad senior year with me teaching her. Teaching your own children is hard even for profession tutors!
  2. Allen took Calculus BC as a senior at American High School. He received an A+ both semesters and a 5 on the AP Calculus BC exam. He also took a calculus challenge exam when he got to BYU. He passed this final with an A before starting his freshman year. He got 5 credit hours with an A grade for this challenge exam. College Board credit hours do not carry a grade. Allen was a Bio-Chemistry major. He is an orthopedic surgical resident at Yale Medical Center. Many of Allen’s AP exams did not dismiss him from the freshman science classes. Even with scores of 5 in AP Biology and Chemistry, he had to take a higher-level chemistry and biology in his freshman year (Biology 120 and Chemistry 112 and 113). Allen’s AP scores gave him credit for Biology 100 and Chemistry 100. We called several medical schools during Allen’s senior year of high school. Most of the medical schools required him to retake sciences courses and English in college.
  3. Chris took Calculus AB as a senior. He did no homework in Mr. Prucha’s Calculus class. Chris signed a contract with me where I would pay him $10/hour to allow me to prepare him for the AP exam. Chris only fulfilled 4 hours of the contract. Chris scored a 5 on the AP Calculus AB exam. He never took math again. Chris did not like math. He only tolerated it in secondary school. From middle school, Chris knew he would go on to law school. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2013. Chris was a philosophy of law instructor at the University of Alabama. He is currently finishing his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
  4. Scott took Calculus AB in his junior year. We did some research to decide if he should take Calculus BC his senior year. Based on Scott’s intended major, it was not necessary. However, for a brief time, he considered majoring in economics at Rice University. Scott was worried that he would need to take Calculus BC at Rice. College calculus is very difficult. The students at Rice are extremely competitive.
  5. Jessica took Calculus AB in her junior year. She took Calculus BC in her senior year. This was a good call; it allowed Jessica to focus more on standardized testing in her junior year. Also, Calculus BC at James Logan is difficult. Having a calculus background made Calculus BC easier for her. For UCLA College of Letters and Science, all students are required to take two semesters of calculus in order to graduate. Jessica fulfilled this requirement by getting a 5 in the Calculus AB and BC exams. If Jessica had decided to go to UC Berkeley, as a pre-business major, she would still need to take Multivariable Calculus. Cal only accepts scores of 5 for the pre-business major. Jessica took double math with Calculus BC and AP Statistics in her senior year. This helped her to be more competitive for college applications.

My advice is to take as much math as possible and as little as you need (unless you love math or have excellent teachers). It is advantageous to finish math classes while in high school. This allows a student to move onto classes that he/she is interested in at college. Having gap years in a math curriculum is not desirable. Imagine taking Spanish 2 in high school during sophomore year and then not taking Spanish again until your junior year in college. A student may have to restart from ground zero.

For myself, I took many classes of math in college. However, math is my passion. I often do math in my sleep and everywhere else. While falling asleep recently, I was thinking about a shortcut to do an algebraically complicated problem in geometry. When I woke up, I had dreamed up a formula for the geometry problem. This is unique to me though. Not many people do math while:

  • in their sleep
  • at a medical/dental office
  • at the bank
  • in a line anywhere
  • at a party
  • at a buffet – I sat for hours at a Vegas buffet and made a solution manual for AP Calculus problems.
  • in a hotel
  • at family gatherings
  • on the airplane – I did 9 hour of SAT math and worked through the entire College Board SAT book while on the plane to Korea. After I finished the math, I got very sick. All students need to do math on a flight to stave off airsickness.
  • at church – ouch, I got caught by the bishop working on a SAT solution manual!