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@evk12
0 answers, 1 vote
 • 2 years ago •
Admissions Advice
[edited]

Do top schools require students to have taken AP Calculus in High School if they want to major in Finance/Business?
Answered

I started freshman year in Algebra 1 and will only be able to take Pre-Calculus and AP Statistics by the time I graduate. If an applicant has not taken AP Calculus and instead ended with Pre-calculus and AP Stats by the time they apply to college, are they at a significant disadvantage when applying to a Finance/Business major at an elite school?

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Accepted Answer
@CameronBameron
2,281 answers, 8,542 votes
 • 2 years ago[edited]

If you take Algebra 2 or Pre-Calc during the summer, you can take AP Calc senior year. Having calculus under your belt will make you a more competitive applicant at certain top schools. It's certainly not required that you need HS Calculus to study Finance but without it, you are going to have take Calculus in college as a core requirement for Finance degrees. You are most likely not going to need it until Junior or Senior year when you take Advanced Finance classes covering Option Pricing models and Derivatives.

Good luck.

2
[🎤 AUTHOR]@evk122 years ago

Hello Cameron, thank you for taking the time to answer my question. Regarding taking Algebra 2/Precalculus over the summer, I am currently trying to skip Algebra 2; however, almost all students are not successful in skipping Algebra 2 and even fewer are able to skip Precalculus. In this case, will not taking AP Calc put me at a significant disadvantage because my college counselor said that some top schools will reject me right away just from the fact that I haven't taken AP Calc. Is this true?

@CameronBameron2 years ago

I'm not the best at Maths so what I did was take Calculus on the college level online over the summer after junior year. You can do that or take Pre-Calc. over the summer. I used Outlier.org which is a self-paced online platform taught by Ivy/Elite college professors. I found it much easier to follow that taking it in real time at my high school because I need to review things over and over before math clicks in for me. I did the 7 week Calc course and got an A and it earned me 3 college credits

@CameronBameron2 years ago [edited]

When I applied ED to Columbia U, they just asked me to send them the transcript from UPitt who does all of outlier.org back office management. This gave me the flexibility not to take take math senior year and my HS supported this college course as a DE enrollment course. Good luck.

0
@KiriKay
10 answers, 7 votes
 • 2 years ago

Hi! A lot of university's realize that not all schools have an AP calculus course and may not require it. However, since you are wanted to go to an elite school, I am unsure and not experienced enough to give you an answer.

A lot of universities will clearly spell out what the minimum requirements are for admittance into specific programs on their website. It is definitely worth digging around on the websites of universities that interest you for admittance requirements.

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