If You’re Coming Into a Math Major at an Elite University, Spin Up on Math Beyond AP Calc BC

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If you’re coming into a math major at an elite university, then it would be a good idea to spin up on math beyond AP Calc BC.

You probably won’t hear anyone explicitly tell you you need to do that, but the way the courses are often run, there will likely be an implicit assumption that you are already comfortable or at least familiar with a lot of that stuff.

This is false in theory, but often true in practice.

Why? Because lots of math instructors at elite universities, being of far outsized aptitude and often having far outsized mathematical upbringings, don’t have a good frame of reference for what high school math covers is or how well non-genius students can identify and spin up on missing prerequisite knowledge.

The content that many other math majors at elite universities are going to come in already knowing, beyond the standard high school curriculum and competition math, is

• linear algebra & multivariable calculus
• proof-writing including inklings of real analysis (e.g., epsilon-delta limit proofs) and abstract algebra (e.g., structure of the additive & multiplicative groups of integers).

So if you want to be well-prepared, that’s what you should aim to come in with too. In particular, get really solid on proof-writing, because that’s where the lion’s share of missing prerequisite knowledge is going to be.

Further Reading: Want to Major in Math at an Elite University? Getting A’s in High School Math is Not Good Enough

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