Audit college course or?

[MEmama]

I don’t spend much time here so I apologise if a similar situation has been asked and answered.

DS took an accelerated Calc BC course through WPI this summer with the hopes of taking Calc 3/ multivariate DE this school year (senior). He has a couple friends planning to do the same. The DE program filled up—I think priority was given to actual university students since so many opted to go online—so that no longer appears to be an option. The other opportunity is to audit a class at our local LAC—the professor is the dad of one of DS's friends and will be accommodating to the high school students (in case of class or sport conflicts). The grade will be on their high school transcript but will not affect their GPA; it isn’t clear that future universities will accept the audited course for placement and there will be no credit.

DS wants to do the auditing, but I have my reservations. First of all, while it was a regular college course, the Calc BC course he just took was really fast paced (5 weeks). And while he passed, I have no way to verify how thorough his understanding is. Mostly I hesitate because this year is already going to be extra difficult—in all the ways—with Covid fallout. His current schedule is plenty challenging and time consuming and I don’t understand how adding in yet another challenge is going to be beneficial. The option if he doesn’t audit the Calc 3 class is to take Calc BC again, and while I do understand why he doesn’t want to take it again, I also think that if it ends up being repetitive, there’s no harm in one easier class senior year. To be honest, he has some skills he really needs to focus on this year—time management, managing anxiety—that would be far more beneficial in the short and long term than getting ahead just to get ahead.
 

Obviously I don’t want to hold him back, but I truly feel like this year has so many stressors automatically built in that I can’t wrap my head around wanting to make it even more complex. Any words of advice? Am I off track? In full disclosure, he did have a major anxiety attack  last year that derailed an entire quarter, so I’m feeling protective of his mental health.

 

[regentrude]

What is the tuition policy of the college? At our uni, students would have to pay full tuition for auditing, same as for a for-credit course. In that setting, I see little value in auditing a class. In my experience, auditing usually means students are not doing all the work, which means they don't learn as much as if they were taking it for credit. However, if auditing is free at your college, I don't see any drawbacks, as he could always drop the course when it gets too much.

AP calc BC, which consists of calc 1 and 2, in 5 weeks sounds brutal. That is very unusual, and I would have reservations about how much has been retained.

 

[8filltheheart]

Can you describe his math background a little more clearly?  Did he spend all last school yr on cal 1 and then take cal 2 in 5 weeks?  I'm assuming he took a summer math class somewhere?  Was it identified as BC meaning cal 1 and 2 or was it a college cal 2 class?  

Cal 2 is typically considered the hardest math sequence out of the 3 cal courses.  That doesn't mean he couldn't have mastered it in 5 weeks, though.  When you say he passed, did he make an A?  (Since you say it was a regular college class, the GPA from the course will follow him forever as needing to be reported anytime a college transcript is required.)  If it was a college course, can he actually repeat again at the same college if he passed? (I've not heard of that being a normal policy.)

[MEmama]

8 minutes ago, regentrude said:

What is the tuition policy of the college? At our uni, students would have to pay full tuition for auditing, same as for a for-credit course. In that setting, I see little value in auditing a class. In my experience, auditing usually means students are not doing all the work, which means they don't learn as much as if they were taking it for credit. However, if auditing is free at your college, I don't see any drawbacks, as he could always drop the course when it gets too much.

AP calc BC, which consists of calc 1 and 2, in 5 weeks sounds brutal. That is very unusual, and I would have reservations about how much has been retained.

 

The auditing is free to the best of my knowledge. I agree he *could* drop the class if necessary, but I can’t see him making that choice once he has committed. In addition to not wanting to drop if his friends stay, he would be left without a math class for the year (he has more than enough to graduate, but it wouldn’t look good on his transcript

I definitely share the concern about retention. Even if he did fine in the moment, can it truly have been deep enough to build on? Especially as he was younger by a year (or two or three) than most of his classmates. I have to think those years and maturity make a difference?

[MEmama]

13 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Can you describe his math background a little more clearly?  Did he spend all last school yr on cal 1 and then take cal 2 in 5 weeks?  I'm assuming he took a summer math class somewhere?  Was it identified as BC meaning cal 1 and 2 or was it a college cal 2 class?  

Cal 2 is typically considered the hardest math sequence out of the 3 cal courses.  That doesn't mean he couldn't have mastered it in 5 weeks, though.  When you say he passed, did he make an A?  (Since you say it was a regular college class, the GPA from the course will follow him forever as needing to be reported anytime a college transcript is required.)  If it was a college course, can he actually repeat again at the same college if he passed? (I've not heard of that being a normal policy.)

Sorry, I might have mixed up terms. He took AP Calc AB last year in high school. Over the summer he took Calc 2 online through a college. He passed with a B, which will reported to universities in addition to his high school transcript. 
 

If he audits a class this year, it would be Calc 3. If he doesn’t, he would take AP Calc BC at the high school (“repeating” his summer course material is how he sees it).

If Calc 2 is normally the most difficult, I feel extra validated in my concern about leaping ahead too quickly. I don’t want him to be bored in BC (doubtful anyway) but I especially don't want him to potentially be missing key concepts and then need to play catch up in Calc 3. 

[regentrude]

1 hour ago, MEmama said:

The auditing is free to the best of my knowledge. I agree he *could* drop the class if necessary, but I can’t see him making that choice once he has committed. In addition to not wanting to drop if his friends stay, he would be left without a math class for the year (he has more than enough to graduate, but it wouldn’t look good on his transcript

I definitely share the concern about retention. Even if he did fine in the moment, can it truly have been deep enough to build on? Especially as he was younger by a year (or two or three) than most of his classmates. I have to think those years and maturity make a difference?

I do not think no math class would be a big deal. Also, you can still count it as a homeschool course and address in the course description that he used an audited college course as part of an independent study class. No shame in not finishing that. Just spin it 🙂

I do not find that age and years make a difference for math ability- the previous grounding in math and the foundation laid in the prior years is way more important. My DD was tutoring calculus based engineering physics at my university when she was 15 years old ;).

[8filltheheart]

Calculus does not have to be his only option.  He could consider number theory or counting and probability (both available through AoPS.)

He could possibly retake cal 2 and start multivariable via MIT opencourseware (easy to do vs. auditing.)  https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-02sc-m

Stanford Online High School and CTY both offer upper level math courses:

https://onlinehighschool.stanford.edu/course-catalog?time=1598487598882

https://cty.jhu.edu/online/courses/mathematics/

 

[RootAnn]

Calc 3 doesn't necessarily build on Calc 2. It is much more dependent on Calc 1, IMO. Does he thrive on live classes & classmates or is he better with at-your-own-pace things like the MIT OCW 8 mentioned or studying from a textbook at home?

I have both types of kids (must-have-live & better-at-home), so sometimes the other things dictate the decision.

Did you say his grade level and what he might want to major in?