Calculus, College Admissions, and the High School Curriculum

MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA—Much of the pressure to study calculus while in high school comes from the widespread belief that it will improve the chances of admission to selective colleges and universities. There has been little hard evidence of this, but a recent report by Veronica Anderson and Pamela Burdman of Just Equations, A New Calculus for College Admissions, published in partnership with the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), presents evidence that this is often the case. Beyond the elite technical universities such as MIT, no one explicitly requires calculus for admittance, and even there exceptional students can be admitted without it. But we now see that it does weigh in these decisions.