Should You Take Calculus in High School? What a New Study Found

A student can take every advanced math class their high school offers, earn an A in each one, and still lose ground in engineering admissions for not taking calculus. That’s what a new study of 292 college admissions officers found, and it speaks to a question families ask us all the time. Do you really need to take calculus in high school? Technically, almost never, since very few colleges list it as a requirement. But if you’re interested in engineering or another math-heavy major, you should take it anyway, because in practice it works like one.

The good news is that calculus is a scheduling decision, and scheduling decisions can be fixed if you see them coming. In this guide, you’ll find what the study actually measured, what engineering schools say about calculus in their own words, how to map out math classes that reach calculus, and what to do if your school stops at precalculus. It draws on the course plans Prepory’s engineering admissions consultants build with students every year, including students who start behind and still catch up.

Admissions officers were 16.4 percentage points less likely to recommend an engineering applicant for admission when the applicant hadn’t taken calculus, even though the application made clear that calculus wasn’t offered at their high school. Applicants who took calculus had a 64.1% chance of an admit recommendation. Otherwise identical applicants without it had a 47.7% chance.

The study was led by BK Byun, a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, with Michael Bastedo and three other Michigan researchers. They recruited admissions officers from 69 four-year colleges that admit half of their applicants or fewer, working through the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). Each officer read simulated applications from first-generation students applying to engineering. Every applicant had taken all of the advanced math and science their school offered, and the high school profile stated plainly that calculus wasn’t available. The paper, “Is Calculus a Gatekeeper in Selective Engineering Admissions?”, was released as an EdWorkingPaper through Brown University’s Annenberg Institute and has been accepted by the journal Educational Researcher, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Two other results are worth knowing. The penalty didn’t change with how selective the officer’s college was, and the researchers found no evidence that Asian American applicants without calculus were judged more harshly than otherwise identical White applicants. The authors are also clear about the limits of their design. These were simulated files read in a controlled setting, so the numbers show how officers judge an application, not how a full committee votes. The finding still reaches a lot of families, since only 50% of U.S. public high schools offer calculus, according to U.S. Department of Education data cited in the paper.

Most engineering programs don’t formally require high school calculus, but almost all of them point to it. A few, like Caltech and Cornell, require a year of calculus outright. Most others, including MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Purdue, and the University of Illinois, describe it as expected, preferred, or strongly encouraged, often with the note “if available at high school.” Here’s what each school says in its own words.

The wording varies, but the study suggests the line between “required” and “preferred” matters less than families assume. The officers in the experiment weren’t checking a requirements list. They were judging whether an applicant looked ready for a first-year engineering curriculum that starts with calculus, and calculus on the transcript was the clearest evidence available.

University-wide minimums can also mislead you. The University of California requires three years of math, strongly recommends a fourth, and doesn’t require calculus at all. That’s the floor for the whole university, not a picture of a competitive engineering applicant.

Many will, according to this study, though the penalty was smaller when admissions officers spent more time reading your high school’s profile. A school profile is a document your counseling office sends with your transcript. It lists the courses your school offers, its grading scale, and details like average test scores and how many graduates go on to college, and it’s how an admissions officer in another state learns that calculus was never an option for you.

In the reviews where officers spent the least time on the school profile, applicants without calculus were 22.1 percentage points less likely to get an admit recommendation. In the reviews where officers spent the most time on it, the gap fell to 11.0 points. The researchers can’t say the extra reading caused the smaller gap, since reading time wasn’t assigned at random. The pattern still points to something you can act on, which is making the context impossible to miss.

The study only tested students whose school didn’t offer calculus. If officers docked applicants who never had the option, a student who had calculus down the hall and chose a lighter schedule has little reason to expect more leniency. Colleges judge course rigor against what your own school offered, and a skipped calculus class is easy to spot on a transcript.

Start planning in 8th or 9th grade. On the most common math sequence, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and Precalculus each take a full year, so a student who starts Algebra 1 in 9th grade reaches precalculus as a senior and never gets to calculus without speeding up somewhere. Schools that use Integrated Math I, II, and III follow the same logic under different names.

Many high schools collect next year’s course requests in the winter or early spring. That’s the moment to look four years ahead, because the decision you make for 9th or 10th grade sets where you can finish. Placement affects your GPA from the start, too, and colleges do look at freshman year, so choose the most advanced class you can do well in, not just the most advanced one available.

If you’re on the first track and want engineering, there are a few common ways to speed up. Every school sets its own rules on placement, prerequisites, and summer credit, so ask your counselor before you build a plan around any of them.

If you’re already in 10th grade, there’s usually still a path, and the summer before junior year is the most useful one you have left. A change made now costs a summer. The same change made in 11th grade can cost a year. Course selection is part of what we cover in our early college planning for 10th graders.

You can take calculus outside your high school through dual enrollment at a community college, an online course, or a summer college class. Any of these closes the exact gap the study measured, since the penalty applied to applicants with no calculus at all. Before you sign up, confirm how the course will appear on your transcript and whether your high school will count it.

There’s no single right option. A student who does well with a live teacher may struggle in a self-paced online course, so pick the format you can finish with a grade you’re proud of.

Take AP Calculus BC if you’re ready for it and you’re aiming for engineering, math, or physics at a selective college. College Board describes BC as a first-semester college calculus course plus the course that follows it, while AB covers the first semester only. Take AB if precalculus was a struggle or your junior year is already heavy, then move on to BC material or Calculus II afterward.

For students who start late, the order matters as much as the course. One rising junior Prepory worked with wanted engineering but was a year behind in math. His plan was AP Calculus AB as a junior, Calculus II over the summer, and multivariable calculus or linear algebra at a community college as a senior. Several of our coaches backed that plan over jumping straight into BC, because a strong junior-year grade in AB reads better than a shaky one in BC. As Dr. Glen Water, Prepory’s Learning and Development Director, put it, “it’s pretty brutal to skip AB and go straight to BC.”

AP Statistics is a valuable course, especially for students heading toward psychology, economics, business, or the life sciences. It pairs well with calculus. For engineering, it doesn’t replace it. If you’re deciding how many advanced courses to stack in one year, our guide on how many AP classes you should take can help you weigh the load.

If you can’t get to calculus by senior year, you still have real paths into engineering and other technical careers, and it’s better to adjust the plan now than in the fall of senior year. The two most common are engineering technology programs and starting at a community college, then transferring.

Neither path is a consolation prize. One Prepory coach recently built a senior’s college list this way, with engineering programs as reach schools and engineering technology programs as targets and likely schools, so the student has strong options whatever happens in the spring.

Calculus is rarely written down as a requirement, and it still works like one in engineering admissions. A study of 292 admissions officers found that taking every math class your school offers doesn’t fully protect you if calculus isn’t among them. The fix is a scheduling decision made at 14, not an essay written at 17.

To learn more about Prepory and how we can support your college applications, contact us to schedule your free initial consultation.