However, interviews with 10 respondents suggest that views may be changing. One admissions officer at a public research university said they were “pushing” application readers out of the belief that “good” students were taking calculus. “So yes, we should have really pushed for that in our reader training,” the admissions officer said. Another respondent said, “In a vacuum, yes, calculus trumps everything else, but if we’re not pursuing a STEM program and especially engineering, we think statistics or data science is perfectly fine as a fourth-year math course.”
At the same time, other interviewees said this test-optional admission it has prompted them to place more emphasis on calculus. One admissions officer at a large state university said they previously relied on SAT scores to determine math preparation, but now place more weight on calculus, especially for engineering applicants.
Some admissions officers said they felt pressure from university faculty to give preference to applicants with a math background. Giving extra weight to calculus is a “deep-rooted practice,” Just Equations’ Birdman said, and that because admissions officers must respond to a range of audiences, they are wary of the change.
Changing hearts and minds in college admissions departments can take time. Birdman says that if selective institutions can show that students who don’t take calculus do well in college, then colleges will have “more confidence” in admitting students who take alternatives such as statistics.
Until then, students struggling with limits and derivatives may just have to wait for the evidence to accumulate.
Contact the staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595 or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
This story about high school calculus was written by Jill Barshey and produced by The Hechinger Reportan independent, non-profit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Evidence points and others Hechinger Bulletins.
