Many high schools offer advanced placement courses, abbreviated “AP courses.” AP courses are special courses offered by the CollegeBoard who have certain curricular topics that high school AP courses need to cover in order for the course to be called “AP.” AP courses are designed to be similar to a freshmen college course in the subject area, and thus, high scores on the AP exams often allow you to skip the corresponding class in college, depending on the college you attend. Although AP courses exist for nearly every major discipline covered in high school curriculums, this article focuses on detailing the mathematics advanced placement exams.
Otherwise known as Calculus I, most students who make it this far take it as either a junior or senior, but occasionally students will take it earlier if they are in an accelerated math program or did summer work. AP Calculus AB courses cover two major components: differential calculus, and integral calculus, which work together very closely. Most colleges split this up as a freshmen course over two semesters. It is the building block for many fields of mathematics, and thus it is recommended that students intending on being math, physics, engineering, and to a lesser extent chemistry majors take AP Calculus AB at their high school, if offered. Most non-AP Calculus I courses cover similar material.
This is the equivalent of Calculus II, and is thus an extension of Calculus I. Most students who take AP Calculus BC are seniors. Schools that offer both AP courses fall into one of two categories.
The first is where AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC are condensed into one year and the students in the class take the BC exam. It does not mean going twice as fast, though, because the AP Calculus BC curriculum contains all of the topics in AP Calculus AB, as well as some more advanced ones, many of which are extensions of topics in AP Calculus AB courses. It is efficient, but sometimes the pace of the course is so fast students struggle to absorb all of the information.
The second thing some schools do is split the AP Calculus courses into two years. In this case, AP Calculus AB material is all taught in the first year, and the remaining material is covered in the second year. Since the AP Calculus BC curriculum is less than 50% bigger than the AB curriculum, the second class often has a much slower pace than the first class, but much of the material covered in the first year will pop up again as the students learn new applications for the new material.
Even though AP Statistics is a mathematics course just like the AP Calculus courses, it is a completely different class. Like the other courses, this one is typically (but not always) taken by upperclassmen. This is because it is less technical, and is more reliant on applications to a wide variety of scenarios. For this reason, it is known as a utility course because its applications are so flexible. Concepts and logic are quite important here.
Which courses(s) you choose depends on what you intend to use the knowledge for. A student planning to major in mathematics should take as many of these classes as possible. As a result, a common option for ambitious mathematics students is to take precalculus over the summer, either online, at a local university, or in a course provided by the school. This allows students to jump into Calculus a year earlier, and if they take AP Calculus AB as a junior, they can complete both AP Calculus courses before they graduate.
If you plan to major in something completely different, AP Calculus is not as likely to beneficial for you, and you may be better off taking AP Statistics. Chances are, you will find an application more related to your intended major than AP Calculus would ever be. If you are still not sure, your guidance counselor and the math teachers at school should be able to steer you in the right direction.
Also, if you are planning on taking AP Physics, AP Calculus AB is a common corequisite for it. That is something to keep in mind should you be interested in AP Physics as well.