Some derivative views of an integral part of admission

Should your kid take calculus? If your family is aiming for the most selective colleges, then yes, unequivocally. Ideally AP Calculus. If your kid’s high school doesn’t offer calculus, it is worth trying to take it at a community college.

There is a recent report that might seem to muddy the water, but it doesn’t bear scrutiny.

Calculating the Odds: Counselor Views on Math Coursetaking and College Admissions argues that admissions officers don’t actually care whether applicants take calculus. The authors claim that high school guidance counselors and private admissions counselors (like me) overestimate how important calculus is for admissions officers and so encourage—in error—our clients to take the class.

Here are the poll results the authors use to support this claim:

“While 93 percent of high school counselors said calculus gives students an edge in admissions, only 53 percent of admissions officers in our prior study said the same. Likewise, when asked whether not taking calculus in high school narrows students’ college options, 73 percent of high school counselors agreed or somewhat agreed, compared to just 34 percent of admissions officers.”

Seems plausible! The actual decisionmakers don’t care much, and we hangers-on who try to scry into their preferences overestimate how much they care—the argument goes.

Nope. I have two counterarguments, which we’ll step through now.

Critique 1: Their earlier report says exactly the opposite

Let’s look more closely at that earlier study from the same authors: A New Calculus for College Admissions.

In that report, they lament that many admissions officers care too much about calculus. The exact opposite claim!

“When asked to name which advanced high school math courses carry the most weight for admissions, respondents’ top three choices were AP Calculus (75 percent), regular calculus (73 percent), and precalculus (50 percent)—all ahead of AP Statistics (38 percent).”

Here are some quotes from anonymous admissions officers they surveyed:

“Calculus is the gold standard that people in this business use as a shortcut.”

“Calculus is an easy answer to a complicated question. Institutions are looking for a simple gatekeeper. We are looking for ways to determine excellent and extraordinary students.”

“We want students to take precalculus or calculus. We want to stretch people but not push them beyond their level of preparation. We expect them to take rigorous courses and do well in them.”

“Calculus is recommended for all and expected for some.”

“We recommend that all applicants take calculus, if it is available to them.”

“We expect to see math through calculus. Students without calculus are much less likely to succeed in our curriculum.”

How about those 53 percent and 34 percent figures about how few admissions officers care about calculus?

First, 53 percent isn’t a few! If just over half of the relevant decisionmakers say “this class gives kids an edge in admissions,” that seems like a good reason to take the class.

The earlier report also explains that rephrasing the questions yields different poll results: “Even in the survey responses, answers depended on the exact phrasing of the question.” Which is how the same survey told us that 75 percent of admissions officers say AP Calculus is the most important math class for getting in.

Critique 2: Colleges’ revealed preferences for calculus

“Revealed preference” is a fancy econ way of saying that behavior is the best indicator of preferences. Not what people say, but what they actually do.

I always prefer to consider what admissions officers actually do, not what they say about themselves. Why would we consider poll results about people’s opinions of their own behavior, when we can consider their actual behavior?

And what do admissions officers actually do?

They let in kids who have taken calculus.

A New Calculus for College Admissions, one of the reports we’ve been examining, says that 79 percent of the freshman class at Wesleyan in 2021 had taken calculus in high school.

In 2019, Jeff Selingo found that 97 percent of Harvard’s freshman class in 2019 had taken calculus in high school. Think of all those English majors!

Calculus and watermelons

Admission aside, my personal view is calculus is good preparation to be a careful thinker.

I took AP Calculus in high school, and it has served me well. I needed to know it for economics classes in college. Many times in my energy career I have had to clarify that the rates of capacity additions are changing—not just the number and size of power plants out there. I have tried to explain to non-technical clients that megawatt-hours are the area under the curve, and sometimes I just get blank stares back.

Calculus also helps you slice up watermelons with less waste, I find. The edible red part is also the area under the curve.

So, how to plan a high school curriculum that gets to calculus, ideally by junior year, without unnecessary misery and without impinging on time for test prep, fulfilling extracurriculars, friends, and sleep?

You can sign up for my online class on academics here. If you’d like more tailored advice for your kid’s specific circumstances and strengths, you can book a one-on-one consultation here.