Math requirements for USNA

AstroMom

AstroMom

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Feb 24, 2015
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My son is a class of 2021 hopeful. He goes to a large public high school. He has completed Geometry Honors and Algebra 2 Honors (will complete in June). His school offers Pre-Calculus (Honors) and Calculus (AP) but no Trigonometry. How important is Trig for entrance to the USNA? Should he try and take an online course? I was hoping some of you could advise us the best course of action. He is currently a sophomore.

Thank you!
 
Most pre calc courses build in quite a bit of trig, as it lays a foundation for Calculus. If he takes it and feels he is lacking, he could always take a trig course online or at the local community college over the summer.
 
Check out You-Tube for trig classes and all the other free math classes available online. It's amazing what is available.
 
DS didn't take trig...it was included in pre-Calc. He took the SAT at the end of that class (end of junior year) and did very well on the Math SAT. I wouldn't worry too much about the trig aspect.
 
Pre calc is considered trigonometry in modern school systems (for the most part)
 
There's like 1 or 2 things to remember from Trig, like the trig functions, inverse trig function, hyperbolic trig function, and that's it. I had Trig for a full semester in HS and I remember hardly anything from it because I barely used it in the year of PreCalc that followed. PreCalc is like partial fraction decomposition, matrices and logarithmic stuff. Honestly it's not that important. If you want, just go to Khan Academy online and learn some basics.
 
@AstroMom-
My son took/is finishing the exact same classes as you have listed and he has been offered an appointment to USNA. So I think those classes will be fine.
 
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