My high school was the same way, but I didn't know to do what I should have done, take as much Calculus as I could over several summers, at a nearby community college. I recommend you do that, or, if you think you can study on your own, buy the Cliffs notes study books. My college is a "good geek-type" college ( though probably not "really good," on the same par as MIT) and it requires entering freshmen to take a placement test for Math and Chemistry. I did horrible on the Chemistry test, so didn't take the subject, thereby avoiding my minimal placement level, and I did well enough on the Math to get in Pre-Calculus. I should have done better than Pre-Calculus to be competitive with my fellow members in the Honors program--who are now into things like Linear Algebra classes, just as sophomores. The reason I did not get placed into one of the three Calculus sequence classes (A, B, C) is that my high school didn't offer a real Calculus course that would have educated me enough on the subject. So you have two options, pretty much, get the credits out of the way at a community college over your summers (or on the same days, after school, as your high school classes, if you are a real nerd or want to see what school in Japan is like), or study really hard on your own and do well on your college's placement test, if it offers it. I don't know if MIT offers a placement test.
07 Sep 2006, 3:08 pm
