What are you planning on majoring in for college? Are you even going to NEED much math above Calc 1 and 2?

Also: what order did you take high school math in? I personally had Algebra 1 (8th grade), then Geometry, and then Algebra 2—did I forget Algebra over the year that I didn’t have it? Not really, no.

Really, I don’t think it’ll be that much of a problem if you take AP Calc junior year. If you’re planning on majoring in something math-related, I would assume that you’re actually GOOD at math to a certain extent, lol. And having taken AP Calc, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like something you’d actually forget… it’s essentially learning the basics of integrating and differentiating. You might forget some of the small details over the year that you have Stat (some of the derivatives, a test or two of convergence) but nothing a little bit of studying wouldn’t bring right back to you. And if you have the basics, everything else is building on that in one way or another.

If you pass the AP Calc test, and get the credit, it may be a bit harder going directly in to higher-level math classes in college. But not as hard as, say, getting a 5 on AP Chemistry in 11th grade and then going directly into Organic Chemistry in college… Math is getting Concepts; it would be harder with something based more on knowing FACTS.

If you don’t get credit (depends on where you go to college as well as what you get on the test) or if you only get credit for Calc 1 (rather than both 1 and 2) then the first few math classes should actually be EASIER for you, especially with AP Calc and Stat BOTH under your belt.

If you worry about it, you can either brush up on your Calculus before starting college classes or just elect to start in a lower level of Calculus than what your credit from the test would place you in.

As for your second question, I really don’t think either option necessarily looks “better” to colleges—just as long as you keep your grades up in whatever AP classes you end up taking.

Good luck!

True, calculus is harder than statistics, but the two don’t have much to do with each other so they will not effect each other.

I think taking AP calc would be a much wiser decision, since at my school AP stats is only offered as an elective, or as a class people take when they can’t get into AP calc.

Also, the credit for AP calculus will look a lot better than AP stats, because people usually take statistics for business. However, if you’re going to be a business major in college, they will make you retake the Statistics course anyway.

That’s a difficult call. If it were me, if your high school doesn’t offer any math that is above AP Calc BC (like multivariate calculus/vector/calculus/differential equations), I would do AP Calc AB my junior year and Ap Calc BC my senior year. If your school only offers one of the two levels of calculus, AB or BC, you are kind of stuck. If stats conflicts with your English class this year, I guess you take Calc this year and Stats your senior year. If you do it this way, you should probably surrender any credit you get for AP Calculus and start over again with calculus when you get to college (unless of course you exempt/get credit for calculus entirely and don’t need calculus for your major program). You would be at a great disadvantage if you have forgotten how to do calculus before you go to college (which would be the case if you took calculus in 11th grade and took stats in 12th) and you start at a higher level than “Calculus 1.”