> pretty much every college requires "college algebra".
Caltech didn't. In fact, they expect you to know calculus before entering. I didn't, and that nearly capsized my college career before it left the dock.
Caltech didn't. In fact, they expect you to know calculus before entering. I didn't, and that nearly capsized my college career before it left the dock.
Sad to hear that. It suggests their admissions process has succumbed. When I attended, it was very rare for the admissions people to admit someone who couldn't do the work. I only knew one who couldn't.
Colleges should only admit those who pledge themselves to the Guild of Software Engineering at 13, so we can keep the noble profession of building CRUD apps in JavaScript free of riffraff.
The calculus requirement was not listed as an admissions requirement. The other students were astonished that I didn't simply assume it was required.
Fortunately, physics prof Ricardo Gomez invited me to his office for some impromptu calculus tutoring, which saved my bacon. I owe him.
This does not in any way imply that those should be the only kind of places to exist.
This does not in any way imply that there's anything wrong with people who started to recently to have relevant background.
We also do split students as early as after the 4th year (end of elementary school) in three different school systems with about 50% of students attending the highest university track tier. The other two tiers might not have calculus or only in a limited form, but also don't qualify for university without further education. Thus setting students on different paths based on ability/performance early on seems very natural to me. Students always can up/downgrade schools based on performance at any year later on.