AP ab calculus in 10th grade

[prostuff1]

I took a few AP classes through high school. I wish I would have taken more and taken the exams.

I did pre-algebra in 7th, algebra in 8th, trig and geometry in 9th, pre-calc in 10th and calc in 11th.

I took the AP calc exam and got a 4/5 on it. I also did AP History and AP Bio at my school and took the related exams. The exams got me credits for college classes which was great as if got me out of having to take and pay for those classes. $100 per exam (not sure that was the actual cost just giving a number) to save a quarters worth of General Education classes in college.

My senior year of high school was taking AP classes first semester and taking PSO (Post secondary option: college classes) at my local community college. I went off to college with almost 2 entire quarters worth of classes already done.

 

[Huntn]

I thought algebra one and geometry were really easy classes, and did well in both, but is calc a different story? Also, does pre calc even help you for calc? I heard it was just a reveiew of algebra two trig.

Any thoughts are welcome, thanks

I came out of High School (decades ago) thinking math (algebra and geometry) was wonderful until I hit the calculus brick wall in college. It seems that high school (my high school courses) did not prepare me adequately and I believe a pre-calc course would have made a big difference. In hindsight there was a large gap because it was as if the professor was speaking in a foreign language, as in "what's he talking about?" I don't know what it was exactly but I struggled with calculus, which leads me to believe that any kind of prep course would be helpful.

 

[impulse462]

Honestly, colleges would rather see you get a B in a higher level or AP class than get an A in a regular plain Jane class. I'm sure they would be more inclined to go with someone who got a B in Advanced PreCalculus rather than a person who took all regular courses including regular Precalculus. I mean, if you got a B in AP Calc AB, I'd take that over an A in Precalculus. Especially since Calc BC is an AP class, meaning that you the scale is forgiving. [ 5 - A, 4 - B, 3 - C : on a 4.0 scale]. So it won't hurt you from getting a 4.0 in that sense.

What I'm attempting to say is, don't just take classes you can get a guaranteed A in, just for the sake of getting an A. Save that for college.

I agree with your last statement, but in my experience, colleges would rather see As in regular classes than Bs in honors/advanced. Take this as advice from someone who did the latter.

To the OP, I took AP Calculus BC in 10th grade. It comes down to how well you know your stuff. I don't know if its useful for you to cram pre-calc in the summer (which was the most annoying of the geometry-algebra II-precalc sequence in my opinion). Having a strong math background is key for college, jobs, and pretty much anything else honestly.

Pre-calc is mostly trigonometry and honestly until you get to differentiation and integration of trigonometric functions, it doesn't help a lot. But, being someone who did take the BC Calc AP exam..you need a strong knowledge in trigonometry which you'll get in pre-calc. Algebra 1 and geometry are nothing like calculus so don't assume that if you did well in them you'll do well in calculus, although it is a good sign you did well in Alg 1 and Geometry.

However, as I said, it comes down to how well you know the material. I only got 2 As in all 4 years of high school (BC calc and AP bio), because I was good at them I guess.