AP Precalculus

[BlessedMomto3]

I might be the last one to know 😂 but I just read that AP Precalculus will be a new subject for the 2023-24 school year.  I assume it is replacing honors Precalculus.  Does anyone have any thoughts on this or plans to have their student take the AP?  

[purpleowl]

I read about it recently, but I only just thought about the fact that I will have a kid doing precalc this year so I need to make a decision about it, lol!

I am leaning toward not doing it because my kid will also do AP Calc afterward, so it seems unnecessary. 

[BusyMom5]

What type of course is this replacing at a college?  College Algebra?  

[Sebastian (a lady)]

This is incomplete and mixed messaging about this class. 

It seems to be intended for students who are not planning to take Calculus in college. For those students, a passing score might meet general education quantitative course requirements.

In my area, Honors Precalculus will prep students for Calculus and AP Precalculus will be a terminal math course with different content. 

Under the grade weighting schemes in my area, AP Precalculus will get more grade weighting, even though Honors Precalculus might arguably be a more demanding course.

I haven't yet seen an AP Course Policy from a college that includes the new course. These are probably revised in late spring or summer before incoming students have to register. 

My thought is that AP exam seats can be very hard to secure as a homeschooler. If a student is planning to go on to Calculus, they should take the Precalculus course that will best prepare them and that is available to them. 

If a student plans to stop math with Precalculus or shift to Statistics or another math pathway, the AP score might give them college credits. But those credits may or may not meet a requirement for their specific degree. 

As for weighting, I chose to keep my scheme relatively simple, since I wasn't using it to draw distinctions between hundreds of students in one school. I have the same weight to Honors (including Precalculus), Advanced Placement, and Dual Credit college courses. 

[regentrude]

4 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

What type of course is this replacing at a college?  College Algebra?  

Probably College Algebra and Trigonometry, which may be two separate courses.
Note that students majoring in STEM (except biology) won't benefit from the credits because these courses are considered remedial for them and are not part of the degree requirements; this may only help with placement.

Edited January 31, 2023 by regentrude

[EKS]

I suspect it's a way to deal with the dumbing down of the high school math sequence by making precalculus seem like a college course.  Ridiculous.

[freesia]

11 minutes ago, EKS said:

I suspect it's a way to deal with the dumbing down of the high school math sequence by making precalculus seem like a college course.  Ridiculous.

Except that it already is a college class in many places. I was surprised, too, but it’s true of many many colleges. My dd considered doing a pre-calculus clep to get out of a college math requirement. Covid hit, so she couldn’t. She did complete Calculus her senior year, but not the AP test. She had wanted to do the pre-Calc clep bc she thought it would be an easy way to get it done. 
 

I do agree that most students should complete pre-Calc in high school and calculus is my goal for my kids. However, I have certainly seen a number of kids go on to be successful in college with just Algebra 2. They did College Algebra in college, graduated successfully and have good jobs. So my opinions are being tempered a bit over time. 

[kirstenhill]

17 minutes ago, freesia said:

Except that it already is a college class in many places. I was surprised, too, but it’s true of many many colleges. My dd considered doing a pre-calculus clep to get out of a college math requirement. Covid hit, so she couldn’t. She did complete Calculus her senior year, but not the AP test. She had wanted to do the pre-Calc clep bc she thought it would be an easy way to get it done. 
 

I do agree that most students should complete pre-Calc in high school and calculus is my goal for my kids. However, I have certainly seen a number of kids go on to be successful in college with just Algebra 2. They did College Algebra in college, graduated successfully and have good jobs. So my opinions are being tempered a bit over time. 

Totally agreeing with you here.  DD is required to take one math class for her degree program, and it could be College Algebra, Pre-Calc, or Calc.  She is not into math at all (took Pre-Calc and then Stats in 11th and 12th grades), and decided on College Algebra since it was the easiest of the options!  She said it was actually really similar to pre-calc she had in high school, but with less trig.  If AP Pre-Calc had been an option for her, she definitely would have taken it, and then been able to skip the math class at University (assuming the exam went well).  She used AP exam to get credit for the Stats requirement for her degree.   It's not the right path for most STEM students, but plenty of other programs have minimal math requirements, and credit for Pre-Calc from an AP exam could be a great benefit if they aren't planning to take Calc.

[EKS]

2 hours ago, freesia said:

Except that it already is a college class in many places.

That is because the high schools aren't doing their job.  It's remedial regardless of how it is classified by the college.

Edited January 31, 2023 by EKS

[kokotg]

I'm not sure how reliable/complete his information is, but my husband (who teaches high school math) says it's his understanding that Georgia has decided at the state level not to offer AP precalc. So test availability might be even more of an issue than usual for homeschoolers, if a lot of areas are making the same decision. 

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

I'm not sure how reliable/complete his information is, but my husband (who teaches high school math) says it's his understanding that Georgia has decided at the state level not to offer AP precalc. So test availability might be even more of an issue than usual for homeschoolers, if a lot of areas are making the same decision. 

Curious if he knows what the reasoning is behind this.

[daijobu]

6 hours ago, EKS said:

I suspect it's a way to deal with the dumbing down of the high school math sequence by making precalculus seem like a college course.  Ridiculous.

I don't know.  In the absence of any national standards, I welcome the attempt to impose some order on high school curriculum.  Students will find out earlier in their high school career whether they are adequately prepared for calculus and so on.  I would love to see an AP algebra, with appropriate standards.

Honestly, I would not call any AP course, not AP chem, not AP bio, not AP calculus, college level material.  

[kokotg]

55 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Curious if he knows what the reasoning is behind this.

He says, "no! actually I don't!" So there you go. I will update if I find out more.

[Malam]

47 minutes ago, daijobu said:

Honestly, I would not call any AP course, not AP chem, not AP bio, not AP calculus, college level material

Not even calc BC or Physics C? Even MIT gives major-relevant credit for 5s on those.

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, kokotg said:

I'm not sure how reliable/complete his information is, but my husband (who teaches high school math) says it's his understanding that Georgia has decided at the state level not to offer AP precalc. 

Some Georgia schools already has AP precalculus listed as a course offering 

https://www.fultonschools.org/cms/lib/GA50000114/Centricity/Domain/3353/Fulton_County_Math_Pathways_HS-11th_Transition.pdf
 

https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/Page/32475

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, Malam said:

Not even calc BC or Physics C? Even MIT gives major-relevant credit for 5s on those.

Surprised, considering how low the bar is for getting a 5. Curve is so extremely generous on physics exams and BC one as well. 

[Malam]

31 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Surprised, considering how low the bar is for getting a 5. Curve is so extremely generous on physics exams and BC one as well. 

Well you have to consider the type of student taking them. If you consider a 5 to be a pass, as MIT does, then a 26% 5 rate (C: E&M) doesn't seem too easy. If we also include 4s as counting for credit, even then only 40% of students taking E&M would get a score that earns credit.

[Roadrunner]

7 hours ago, Malam said:

Well you have to consider the type of student taking them. If you consider a 5 to be a pass, as MIT does, then a 26% 5 rate (C: E&M) doesn't seem too easy. If we also include 4s as counting for credit, even then only 40% of students taking E&M would get a score that earns credit.

Getting little over half right on E&M exam earns you a 5.   It’s not an easy exam, but not this hard either. 

[kokotg]

10 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Some Georgia schools already has AP precalculus listed as a course offering 

https://www.fultonschools.org/cms/lib/GA50000114/Centricity/Domain/3353/Fulton_County_Math_Pathways_HS-11th_Transition.pdf
 

https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/Page/32475

huh! And he even teaches in Fulton! disregard then--that's why I added the disclaimer; he doesn't always follow such things super closely until they tell him what he's teaching the next year 😉

[Alice Lamb]

11 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Surprised, considering how low the bar is for getting a 5. Curve is so extremely generous on physics exams and BC one as well. 

My former AP Physics teacher from ages ago came to my class reunion once and said that the scores have been so generous that he wouldn't want anyone with less than a 5 to validate.  He would even like an option for a "6" to show who really mastered the material.

 

[ScoutTN]

20 hours ago, freesia said:

I do agree that most students should complete pre-Calc in high school and calculus is my goal for my kids. However, I have certainly seen a number of kids go on to be successful in college with just Algebra 2. They did College Algebra in college, graduated successfully and have good jobs. So my opinions are being tempered a bit over time. 

Yes. Not everyone is good at math or has had good math teachers. Or is headed to a career that requires it. The math one actually needs to function as an adult in our society is almost 100% concerned with finances and requires nothing more than a solid grip on arithmetic through fractions, decimals, and percents. An understanding of some high school math, basic algebra, geometry, and stats, is certainly helpful, but not absolutely necessary. 

 

[Farrar]

I wish people would stop hand-wringing about this. I have mixed feelings about it for a ton of reasons, but calm down, everyone. There were people getting liberal arts degrees from colleges thirty or forty years ago and more who never went all the way through calculus. Content that doesn't include calculus has been a terminal math course in colleges for non-STEM majors from before I went to college. There's no dumbing down happening. Look at a Harvard or a Duke course catalog from the 1950's and I guarantee they were teaching algebra there and counting it as a requirement or final offering for certain majors. And not everyone needs calculus to function in their field.

[cintinative]

@FarrarAgree.  My dad got a degree in Advertising Design back in the early 60s and the highest math he did in high school was Geometry. He had no college math whatsoever. 

And honestly? My major covered Calculus and Differential Equations (graduated in 1995) and I never, ever used it in the 16 years I worked in my field.  

[regentrude]

1 hour ago, ScoutTN said:

Yes. Not everyone is good at math or has had good math teachers. Or is headed to a career that requires it. The math one actually needs to function as an adult in our society is almost 100% concerned with finances and requires nothing more than a solid grip on arithmetic through fractions, decimals, and percents. An understanding of some high school math, basic algebra, geometry, and stats, is certainly helpful, but not absolutely necessary. 

That is a very dangerous argument and can be similarly applied to much of what students learn in school. 
The reading most people need to function as an adult in our society is almost 100% limited to middle-school level; geography limited to one's neighborhood; history and foreign languages not required; sciences - just ask random folks on facebook their opinion.

This is not a good measure to design a highschool education that, ideally, creates an educated populace.
Because stretching one's brain beyond the minimally needed trains critical thinking. Which is in very limited supply.

Edited February 1, 2023 by regentrude

[Roadrunner]

There is very little appetite locally for more APs. Almost everybody prefers DE because it is substantially easier than APs and gives you a guaranteed transfer credit. Since mostly everybody I know wants  UC or a CSU and careless about private colleges, it’s no wonder easy A and transferable one is preferred. 
Type of kids who take APs are the types here that won’t stop at precalculus. Almost everybody who stops at precalculus opts to go into local CC transfer route to university. I will be very surprised to see AP Precalculus offered locally. Standard here for college bound kid is to take Calculus AB as a senior. Very, very few kids take BC. 

[EKS]

I guess I could see an AP Precalculus course if it was a truly honors level course.  My son's honors course at the public high school covered a whole bunch of useful stuff that the regular course (as well as the precalculus courses at the college) don't cover.  

When I say "useful stuff" I mean things that are used again and again in calculus and beyond.  It is obvious that my math classes were developed under the assumption that most students hadn't encountered those things because there is always a major introduction whenever it comes up.  Off the top of my head, some of these topics are partial fractions, conics, matrices, vectors, and parametric equations.

[ScoutTN]

55 minutes ago, regentrude said:

That is a very dangerous argument and can be similarly applied to much of what students learn in school. 
The reading most people need to function as an adult in our society is almost 100% limited to middle-school level; geography limited to one's neighborhood; history and foreign languages not required; sciences - just ask random folks on facebook their opinion.

This is not a good measure to design a highschool education that, ideally, creates an educated populace.
Because stretching one's brain beyond the minimally needed trains critical thinking. Which is in very limited supply.

I understand, but I see many, many, many high school kids without interest or aptitude being pushed into college and college prep work that doesn’t suit them. There need to be a wide variety of paths available and respected as valuable. Not everyone is an intellectual. Some people simply detest math. Some people choose to study other things. 

A student who chooses stats over calculus because stats is useful in all walks of life and because she chooses to devote academic time to other interests did not make a bad choice. My senior did this, Arabic not calculus. The language is far more interesting to her and is absolutely just as challenging!  She wouldn’t have time for it if she did calculus, which she will never use or think about ever again. Her strengths are in languages and words. 

[KSera]

20 hours ago, EKS said:

That is because the high schools aren't doing their job.  It's remedial regardless of how it is classified by the college.

I think precalculus is only going to be considered remedial by people who know their own kids are good at math and won’t have any problem reaching calculus by college. Precalculus is a very respectable math endpoint for college educated students who don’t require math any higher than that for their career. It’s not like saying Algebra 1 is the endpoint.  There would be a very large number of very bright, good students who would be blocked from a college education if calculus was the entry level requirement. While good English skills are necessary for success in all kinds of classes and fields, the same is not true for higher level math. 

[gstharr]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

There is very little appetite locally for more APs. Almost everybody prefers DE because it is substantially easier than APs and gives you a guaranteed transfer credit. Since mostly everybody I know wants  UC or a CSU and careless about private colleges, it’s no wonder easy A and transferable one is preferred. 
Type of kids who take APs are the types here that won’t stop at precalculus. Almost everybody who stops at precalculus opts to go into local CC transfer route to university. I will be very surprised to see AP Precalculus offered locally. Standard here for college bound kid is to take Calculus AB as a senior. Very, very few kids take BC. 

This might be true in the homeschool world, but is certainly not the case in So Cal public or private schools.  UC Irvine and UCLA tend to be the targets, for some groups because of the price and their kids stay local.  Those kids typically just take AP Chem, AP Calc ab, and APUSH.  Everybody  aiming for Berkeley, UC San Diego and even more selective schools have 8-12 APs under their belt, including BC and physics c.

[Roadrunner]

30 minutes ago, KSera said:

I think precalculus is only going to be considered remedial by people who know their own kids are good at math and won’t have any problem reaching calculus by college. Precalculus is a very respectable math endpoint for college educated students who don’t require math any higher than that for their career. It’s not like saying Algebra 1 is the endpoint.  There would be a very large number of very bright, good students who would be blocked from a college education if calculus was the entry level requirement. While good English skills are necessary for success in all kinds of classes and fields, the same is not true for higher level math. 

Precalculus is traditionally a high school level course, so the idea that kids would wrap up math in high school with precalc and don’t take any more math going forward is a sound one. I don’t think non STEM kids need calculus at all. And that could be a wisdom in having an AP exam that gives that finality to kids who just want to be done with math. 
 

[Roadrunner]

6 minutes ago, gstharr said:

This might be true in the homeschool world, but is certainly not the case in So Cal public or private schools.  UC Irvine and UCLA tend to be the targets, for some groups because of the price and their kids stay local.  Those kids typically just take AP Chem, AP Calc ab, and APUSH.  Everybody  aiming for Berkeley, UC San Diego and even more selective schools have 8-12 APs under their belt, including BC and physics c.

In homeschool and public school out in part of California that isn’t Bay Area or LA. 
Kids here also do APs, but our high school is slowly moving away from them in favor of DE. This is a trend here outside of crazy competitive areas. I am sure LA kids and Bay Area kids are on a different planet from us. 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Roadrunner

[ScoutTN]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

That is a very dangerous argument and can be similarly applied to much of what students learn in school. 
The reading most people need to function as an adult in our society is almost 100% limited to middle-school level; geography limited to one's neighborhood; history and foreign languages not required; sciences - just ask random folks on facebook their opinion.

This is not a good measure to design a highschool education that, ideally, creates an educated populace.
Because stretching one's brain beyond the minimally needed trains critical thinking. Which is in very limited supply.

I am not arguing that math education should stop at arithmetic, but that 4 years of high school math, even if it does not include calculus, is plenty for most people. Precal or stats as terminal math is fine for many  people. This path should not be dismissed as not good enough education, imo.
 

There is a tone of lament in this thread at the thought that calculus is not expected of high school students generally. I am all for having advanced math available and well taught for students who need and want it, but a student who does 4 years of math beyond preA and chooses to study other things or not to do any school after that is not necessarily poorly educated. 

[Arcadia]

The course framework 85 pages pdf

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-precalculus/course-framework

[EKS]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

There would be a very large number of very bright, good students who would be blocked from a college education if calculus was the entry level requirement.

I don't think I said that I thought calculus should be an entry requirement for college.  I don't even think that precalculus should be.  Just because a student is deficient in some area doesn't mean that we should decide to make that deficiency into a college level class.

Also, there are a lot of college students who graduate without anything resembling precalculus.  

[EKS]

24 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

The course framework 85 pages pdf

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-precalculus/course-framework

So much for an honors level course.  Oh well.

[EKS]

35 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

There is a tone of lament in this thread at the thought that calculus is not expected of high school students generally.

My argument is not that calculus should be expected of high school students.  It is that precalculus is (or should be) considered remedial for college students.  Sure, they can take it if they are deficient.  That doesn't make it college level.

[Roadrunner]

1 minute ago, EKS said:

My argument is not that calculus should be expected of high school students.  It is that precalculus is (or should be) considered remedial for college students.  Sure, they can take it if they are deficient.  That doesn't make it college level.

I totally agree with you. Precalculus is remedial for college level. 
 

I guess if a colleges has a general Ed requirement that you must take math and often you can satisfy that requirement by precalculus, I could see the value of AP precalculus. Because as it stands now, you can’t just show your high school transcript and say you are done, right? Because if you can, then I see no point of AP Precalculus. 

[freesia]

8 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I guess if a colleges has a general Ed requirement that you must take math and often you can satisfy that requirement by precalculus, I could see the value of AP precalculus. Because as it stands now, you can’t just show your high school transcript and say you are done, right? Because if you can, then I see no point of AP Precalculus. 

I think this is exactly what people will take it for.

[Farrar]

27 minutes ago, EKS said:

My argument is not that calculus should be expected of high school students.  It is that precalculus is (or should be) considered remedial for college students.  Sure, they can take it if they are deficient.  That doesn't make it college level.

That's just straight up out of line with the reality of colleges, which have offered college credit for courses that come before calculus for a hundred years, including ivy league schools. Maybe you think it should be remedial, but when and where has this actually been the case?

[ScoutTN]

.

Edited February 1, 2023 by ScoutTN

[Alice Lamb]

The strictly humanities students in my college year took something called something called "Discrete math" to meet the mathematics requirement.  It  covered neither algebra, trig nor calculus. Instead, it had a mix of basic probability, statistics, number theory. group theory, Boolean algebra, binary arithmetic... with exactly which one were included every term based on the whim of what the professor thought would be most interesting.

I had a young relative who graduated from Lynn University 5 years ago.  The "core" requirements were so broad and varied that no two students took the same thing.  The "quantitative reasoning" requirement was one or two semesters with probably 10-15 choices, including options with names like "Lying with Statistics" or "Winning at Vegas", all designed to be catchy to entice uninterested students.  They seem to have revised this core again and now I can't even find actual course descriptions in the online catalogue.  Note that I only saw two courses labeled as MAT for math: college algebra and calculus concepts.

Moral of the story: Many applied programs at 4 year colleges have very little intense academic requirements. Smallish schools with heavy business, eduation and public policy emphasis seem the furthest from what we consider traditional academics.

[Roadrunner]

3 hours ago, Farrar said:

That's just straight up out of line with the reality of colleges, which have offered college credit for courses that come before calculus for a hundred years, including ivy league schools. Maybe you think it should be remedial, but when and where has this actually been the case?

There is just a ton of overlap between first year college and high school. I mean what is a difference between a survey CC course in history and a well designed survey high school history course?  🤷‍♀️ Or foreign language? Or take precalculus? 
Coming from a place where university picks up where high school leaves off, it’s a bit of a soup here, which is sometimes cool but sometimes creates a ton of unnecessary duplication. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Roadrunner

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

That's just straight up out of line with the reality of colleges, which have offered college credit for courses that come before calculus for a hundred years, including ivy league schools. Maybe you think it should be remedial, but when and where has this actually been the case?

The first year of college seems to duplicate what highschools teach and what students should have learned.
If they learn precalculus in highschool, why redo itin college? Because students didn't actually learn it.
Same with English composition where they are teaching college freshmen active vs passive voice and subject-verb agreement - again, redoing something the students could and should have learned in highschool. Or the required US history course.

The entire college setup makes you wonder: what exactly do these students learn in highschool? Not math apparently, not English, most definitely not foreign languages.

I have an ethical problem that we charge them college tuition to reteach them what they should have mastered during their highschool education. That makes it remedial.

Edited February 2, 2023 by regentrude

[regentrude]

Adding to previous post: I come from a country where, by the end of highschool, the general education was basically completed. College bound students had math through calculus, had physics and chemistry and biology for several years each; had ten years of one foreign language and seven years of a second foreign language - and can then focus their university education on their actual major.
In a country where college is so ridiculously expensive, taking a quarter of the credits to remediate what lacks in highschool education is a waste of resources and the student's money. There should be a better, less expensive, way for students to shore up the gaps. Pushing this off to college is not the way. (And that that may have been the case historically may well be, but that was when tuition was cheap. Charging them several thousand dollars to retake 11th grade math? Not okay.) 

[UHP]

4 hours ago, Arcadia said:

The course framework 85 pages pdf

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-precalculus/course-framework

Thank you for highlighting this!

[Farrar]

Nvm. Thought better of snark.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Farrar

[Caroline]

On 2/1/2023 at 9:23 AM, kokotg said:

huh! And he even teaches in Fulton! disregard then--that's why I added the disclaimer; he doesn't always follow such things super closely until they tell him what he's teaching the next year 😉

Your husband is correct. The state of Georgia did not approve the course. Fulton just hasn’t taken it off their website yet. 

[Ad astra]

19 hours ago, Arcadia said:

The course framework 85 pages pdf

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-precalculus/course-framework

This framework looks mostly identical to the topics covered in Algebra 2 class that my first kid, a 7th grader, is currently taking in PS and Thinkwell honors Alg 2 that he is using to supplement the class.  Does Precalculus overlap a lot with Alg 2?  Even a lot of additional topics that are not included on AP Precalculus exam are covered in honors Alg 2.  It's almost like a repetition (am I missing something?) and this makes me reconsider our plan for the next school year. 

Algebra 2 is the highest math course his junior high school (6th-9th) offers.  There are just two students in this class, him and a 9th grader.  My 7th grader is excelling and getting high A's from this class so far.  The school said they would bus him to high school for next year but unfortunately we just moved to another town (he's still finishing this year there).  I was thinking of bringing him home this fall and homeschool for 8th grade doing just reviews and possibly taking his first ACT, instead of sending him to a new middle school that doesn't even have anything beyond Alg 1, so that he can take Precalculus as a public high school freshman.  After looking at the contents of AP Precalculus, however, I feel he would be more than ready to take it this fall.  I'd have to homeschool him anyway since no schools around here offer precalculus for a 8th grader and he's too young to go to a CC. 

I'm also from a country where every high schooler was required to take Calculus regardless of their intended college major, just at a different level and depth depending on their path, but that's now changed and only STEM-pursuing students take Calculus in the last year of high school.  Others choose Statistics and Probability.  Before then, high school maths are all integrated--no algebra, geometry or precalculus-- and Precalculus topics are definitely taught in high school, not in college.  

[Malam]

On 2/2/2023 at 12:57 PM, Ad astra said:

This framework looks mostly identical to the topics covered in Algebra 2 class that my first kid, a 7th grader, is currently taking in PS and Thinkwell honors Alg 2 that he is using to supplement the class.  Does Precalculus overlap a lot with Alg 2?  Even a lot of additional topics that are not included on AP Precalculus exam are covered in honors Alg 2.  It's almost like a repetition (am I missing something?) and this makes me reconsider our plan for the next school year. 

Algebra 2 is the highest math course his junior high school (6th-9th) offers.  There are just two students in this class, him and a 9th grader.  My 7th grader is excelling and getting high A's from this class so far.  The school said they would bus him to high school for next year but unfortunately we just moved to another town (he's still finishing this year there).  I was thinking of bringing him home this fall and homeschool for 8th grade doing just reviews and possibly taking his first ACT, instead of sending him to a new middle school that doesn't even have anything beyond Alg 1, so that he can take Precalculus as a public high school freshman.  After looking at the contents of AP Precalculus, however, I feel he would be more than ready to take it this fall.  I'd have to homeschool him anyway since no schools around here offer precalculus for a 8th grader and he's too young to go to a CC. 

I'm also from a country where every high schooler was required to take Calculus regardless of their intended college major, just at a different level and depth depending on their path, but that's now changed and only STEM-pursuing students take Calculus in the last year of high school.  Others choose Statistics and Probability.  Before then, high school maths are all integrated--no algebra, geometry or precalculus-- and Precalculus topics are definitely taught in high school, not in college.  

Content-wise, there's usually some overlap, with the new content being trig. I'm sure AP Precalculus will go into greater depth than a standard Algebra 2 class on whatever overlap there is, such as the greater emphasis on logarithms (half of unit 2). I'm a bit disappointed it doesn't cover De Moivre's theorem or Euler's identity, but I suppose converting from cartesian to polar coordinates is close enough.

I don't see any reason why he shouldn't take precalculus next year, unless you want him to do some competition math (AoPS) or discrete math (AoPS) or more rigorous algebra (AoPS) instead to avoid the calculus trap. AP Precalc is intended for students who previously passed Algebra 2, which would include your son.

Fun fact: according to the college board, Calc AB can also be taken straight after algebra 2 (not that I would recommend that).

[EKS]

15 hours ago, Malam said:

Fun fact: according to the college board, Calc AB can also be taken straight after algebra 2 (not that I would recommend that).

This doesn't surprise me. 

A person with mastery of Algebra 2 (with trig) should do fine with, frankly, most of the calculus sequence (at an average university) since it's designed for people who have had the dumbed down (regular) version of precalculus, which is essentially what people should have learned in Algebra 2.

Edited February 4, 2023 by EKS