Math Course

[DearSky]

I had originally planned out my highschool year to take AP Calculus during my senior year, but with a turn of events, the teacher who had been teaching it for years (with high passing rates) decided to step down from teaching it as a protest (against the change of class schedule. We now only have half the time to study for the exam). Then I chose to take Calculus but myself, and many others found out the regular Calculus class wasn't going to run next year. We were called and asked to choose a different math class:

- AP Calculus
- Statistics
- AP Statistics

Which should I take?

The NEW teacher assigned for AP Calculus is a teacher who's known as a good teacher for math at our school. However, it's going to be her FIRST time teaching AP Calculus and when I went into talk with her about the course homework load and rigor, she failed to answer my questions sufficiently. She said that, "It's [her] first year, so we'll just see how it goes!" Lack of confidence and I'm through having teachers who teach the AP course subject for the FIRST time and do a miserable job doing so--same experience with AP World and more than half of my class failed the AP exam.

As for AP Statistics, I know the teacher because she's the teacher for a club I'm in--academic decathlon. I heard she was a great teacher as well.

The only thing is, I don't know what'll be more beneficial to take---considering these odds and circumstances. I originally said AP Calculus despite the teacher, but then my friend (who took AP Calc during her sophomore year with the teacher w/ the high passrate) said it'd be better for me to take AP Statistics since all science majors required Statistics. But I want to take Calculus since I took precal, and I want to have Calculus under my belt for college. Statistics is math with words, I've heard? I don't want that to be a year off of math, technically.

What would colleges like to see? What would you do in my situation? For someone who is going to major in Biology, is statistics required or calculus?

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[RySerr21]

i dunno where your friend got his/her sources but not all science majors require statistics.....that doesnt even make any sense if you take 2 seconds to think about it. I'm a science major, and my major DID NOT require statistics. It did, however, require two semesters of calculus. Major requirements will be different at every school so you need to look into the school that you will be attending, but I'd say that the science majors are more likely to require calculus than they are statistics.

At my school, the biology majors must take at least 1 semester of calculus and then on top of that some other course with a "strong quantitative component" but it doenst necessarily have to be a 2nd semester of calculus. No mention of requiring statistics.

In high school I took boh ap calc and ap stats, and AP stats actually ended up helping me the most because the med school that I will be attending requires a course on statistics. Since its not required for my major, I never took it in college. Luckily, I passed the AP exam with a 4 and the med school is accepting that for their requirements. So for me, statistics turned out to be realy useful and saved me a summer of having to take a math course. Calculus was useful too tho in the sense that it made Calculus 1 pretty easy.

So, Id say you cant go wrong with either course. Its really up to you to make the decision.

 

[135892]

I wouldn't not take a class just because the teacher is new... and you never know, she could turn out to be easier and/or a better teacher than the one before her. So, if you want to take calc, you absolutely should go ahead. Now, as for which of those three classes would be best to take, I really don't think that there is a right answer. All I will say is that, if you plan on taking calc 1 again in college, it may be useful to have studied the material once already in high school. Some schools use intro calc classes to "weed out" students who aren't cut out for a particular major. Thus, they make the class unnecessarily difficult, and sometimes, this makes it tough to get a good grade, even if you feel like you know the material well enough. Although I guess the same could be said for intro stats courses as well. So again, it doesn't matter which course you take now.

And yeah, I think calc is required for bio majors at my school (not sure), but I'm definitely sure that stats is not required, although perhaps it should be.

 

[Maygyver]

I would definitely do the calc. I know I have used some stats in biology, but it's very simple stuff. I need to take a stats class for my psych minor though, so if you are thinking of doing psychology, check if the school you want to go to has an option to use AP credit for that. I would def do AP Calc or AP Stats though. Just because the teacher is new, it shouldn't be too much of a problem because it sounds like he/she is a good teacher.

 

[EyEnStein 07]

Take both maybe? I know what you mean about AP calc...our teacher was a 1st year also and he was horrible. I had to teach a lot of the material to my self which isnt exactly easy. I think if your up for it go ahead with the calc, even if you get a 2 on the AP test, in college you will most likely get an A because you have a lot of the material known to you.

AP stats is also good, i have never taken it in highschool but i think its pretty straight foward in college as its just 1 class. Its better to have a better calc background because you might end up taking Calc 2, and the stronger your skills are for 1 the better.

 

[orrghead16]

AP Stats the curve is crazy easy. If you are mathematically inclined, this class will be a breeze and an easy exam.

Is Calc AB or BC? The BC curve on the AP exam is the most liberal of all the AP tests. >70% of test takers get above a 3 and over 40% get a 4 or 5. The AB curve is steep because many more test takers take it. I had a phenomenal BC teacher my Jr. year. I think he had only had one person get a three my year out of two sections. On the other hand, my AP stats teacher was a brand new teacher, we didn't come close to finishing the material we needed to by exam time. By then, I had prepared for enough AP exams that I knew the game and did great on the exam.

I was lucky to have a lot of great AP teachers early on in HS that taught the classes exactly to take the AP tests and new a lot of the ins and outs of the AP exams. It really prepared me for Jr. and Sr. year when I had teachers that were first or second year AP teachers and didn't know how in the world to teach an AP class. Moral: if you are self-motivated enough, you can nail any AP exam. I did plenty without taking the class for it, let alone having horrible teachers. Get a good review book and use it throughout the class.